Aftermath
by PTBvisiongrrl
Summary: Can Lee and Kara reconnect after the Battle for New Caprica?
1. Prologue

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 1?

**Date-** 8-7-06

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

I admit it, I am a review/comment whore. Please feel free to comment, even if it is to criticize.

Prologue

Many of the colonists on the planet of New Caprica never made it off. Their bodies were unretrievable, the survivors who mourned them forced to rely on hazy memories during the memorial service. Most of the military losses had been recovered; those were the caskets draped in the colors of the deceased's Colony of origin. Those of the military unrecoverable were represented by his/her Colony's flag and an emblem of his or her rank, arrayed across the make-shift alter; the pilots also had helmets, scarred, scored, and burned in battle.

The mourners were segregated by affiliation as well as the mourned. The military and civilian authorities- those alive and not imprisoned in the Galactica's brig- stood at the front of the congregated. Behind that group stood those brave civilians and ex-military who had become the backbone of the Resistance. Finally, taking up the rear, were the civilians currently billeted to the Galactica, as the fleet suffered through the sudden re-integration of almost ten thousand homeless souls.

As she arrived, leaning heavily against Helo, Kara reconsidered her decision to attend against Cottle's orders. Her soul absolutely ached with the need of it, but her body equally throbbed with the need of rest and medication in sick bay. Sighing, Kara observed the split in the audience, and considered where she fit. Clothed in loaned BDUs, her civilian togs ruined in the course of the battle she had survived, she realized how she would stand out if she took a spot near the back. And, with Helo as her human crutch, she had to consider where he would be comfortable. The Admiral no doubt would want him up with the officers, all in dress blues, where she no longer belonged.

She brought this dilemma on her self. She had willingly given up her wings and career for a man who had tried to sell her out to the toasters-

Shaking her head, she tried to calm herself. Motioning to Helo over the hushed din of the crowd, she made her way to the end of the Resistance group, settling between Cally and the Chief, who became her new crutch. As Helo nodded and moved away to the officers, Kara's eyes swept over the group. There were so many she didn't recognize- holdovers from the Pegasus, she assumed- and so many missing. The one face she wanted most to see- and most to avoid- was easier to spot than expected. His profile, stony, leapt out at her from the sea of unfamiliar blues. She watched him carefully, so closely that she could only mumble bland and neutral responses to questions sent her way.

As the priestess stepped up to the podium and intoned those first formal words of the requiem service, Kara noted with a knot in her stomach that Lee stood alone, and yet he still wore a wedding ring.

She wasn't the only one to suffer loss in this battle.


	2. Chapter 1

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 2?

**Date-** 8-17-06

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **647

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

I admit it, I am a review/comment whore. Please feel free to comment, even if it is to criticize.

Chapter One

Kara had been out of the cockpit for over a year, but she could fly in her sleep. It was the main thing she had missed down on the surface. It had taken nearly three weeks in sick bay to recuperate from all her various and sundry injuries, three long and torturous weeks. It had taken less than a day for the Old Man to find out she was laid up there before he showed up, hugged her, and asked when she wanted her viper back. She didn't need to stop and think about her answer- about the fact that as a pilot, she would have to deal with Lee again on a regular basis- she just simply couldn't consider saying no.

Helo had visited her several times, filling her in on the new pilot roster and gossip. That was how she found out that Lee was now XO, and Helo was the CAG, which made her a little less nervous about coming back, when she had time to think past sheer joy at being in the skies again.

Once Cottle had cleared her for flight status, she headed straight for the Old Man's quarters- and was cut off by a marine. "Ma'am, only military personnel are allowed in this corridor."

"I'm a viper pilot." Kara tried to side step the marine's firearm, only to find herself staring down its barrel, the marine an immovable force behind it.

"I repeat, ma'am, only military personnel. You don't have a uniform or dog tags, and I don't recognize you. Please return to the civilian quarters on deck 12." The marine didn't change expression or tone, but Starbuck saw the nervous tell in his face.

"Okay, marine," Kara took a deep breath and put on her Starbuck persona. "Let me introduce myself. I am Captain Kara Thrace, call sign Starbuck. You've never heard of the legendary Starbuck?" she questioned. At his blank look, she continued. "I don't take orders well from superior officers, much less buck privates. I want to see the Old Man, and you aren't going to-" Kara found herself pressed up against the wall face-first, one arm twisted harshly up, and then roughly escorted to the brig by an equally young and new marine.

"Frak me," Kara muttered to herself as they entered her second home on the Galactica. Not even a full hour back on active duty and already in hack. A record, even for her. She was recognized here, at least. "Hey, Gunny. Long time, no see."

The gunnery sergeant looked up, smiled, and said, "Yes, Captain Thrace. Good to see you back on Galactica. The brig is a little full these days, so you'll have to share, but would you like your usual?"

Kara laughed. "Yeah, sure." The soldier led her back to the cell on the end, occupied by two other soldiers- no civilian prisoners, though, which was good. If Kara had been in hack with Baltar, it might have become her permanent home, after she got done with him. "Can you let the Admiral know that I'm here?"

"Yes, sir," the sergeant saluted and went back to his desk and raised the handset.

Kara considered her cellmates, neither of whom was much interested in her. She avoided looking into the other cells, not trusting her reaction to the traitors to the human race held there. She tried to lose herself in thoughts of soaring through the skies at six Gs, settling down on a semi-clean spot of floor, while waiting for the word that she could go. She never expected anyone to be sent to get her, just a phone called order, and certainly not the person who showed up.

His voice carried clearly from the door, breaking into her reverie and causing her to break out in a nervous sweat. "At ease, gunny. I am here to retrieve Starbuck."


	3. Chapter 2

**Title- _Aftermath_**

Work In Progress 

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 3?

**Date-** 8-18-06

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

Word Count- 

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

I admit it, I am a review/comment whore. Please feel free to comment, even if it is to criticize.

Chapter Two

It had been months since they last talked, about Anders and the antibiotics- and months before then that they had spoken civilly. Although the Old Man had come to see her several times during her stay at Life Station, Lee had never shown up, or even called. Knowing that he had lost Dualla, and understanding the things he must be feeling, she hadn't questioned Adama about his son's absence or try to contact Lee. It was probably better that they didn't talk to or see each other. After all, Starbuck and Apollo never did the talking thing well. It was one of their many problems.

So she did not expect a warm reception, and she was not disappointed. The expression on Lee's face was judgmental and sour. The effect of it marred his handsome features.

Lee considered her through the bars and said in a flat tone, "This feels- familiar, Starbuck."

She sucked in a breath, not sure how to answer and unable to entirely read his mood., so she stayed silent and let him continue.

His voice softened as he dangled a set of dog tags in his hand. "Dad said that you'll need another set of these."

Kara reached through the bars to take the tags from him, careful not to touch his fingers for fear that she would grasp them tightly before she could help herself. Sliding them over her head and pulling her long hair out from underneath the chain, she managed to get out "Thanks," in a decent tone.

Lee simply nodded, his voice formal but less harsh than his greeting. "You are released from the brig, Captain, and assigned to your old bunk. You're off duty until flight briefing tomorrow. The Admiral expects you at his quarters for dinner at eighteen-hundred, though."

The use of her and the old man's formal title signaled to her that this was not a Lee and Kara reunion. He was here under orders, which he had carried out. She indicated that she understood by saluting him and saying, "Yes, sir." She stood at attention as he searched for something further to say, his conflicting emotions easy to read by the repetitive clench and release of his jaw muscles. After several moments of silence, he briefly closed his eyes, nodded, and left with a "Carry on."

Released a few moments later by gunny, Kara contemplated her next move. It was the first time that she had been free to wander the Galatica since her return, and she didn't know where to go first. The Chief had recently been re-installed to his post as well; and she considered going to help with maintenance on the vipers until dinner, but decided against it in the end. She didn't want to be around anyone who been planet-side with her right now. She didn't think she could deal with the sympathy and questions. Right now, she just wanted to forget as much of what happened down there as possible.

Her reunion with Lee had not gone as well as she had hoped, but not as badly as she had feared either. Still, his coldness chilled her to her core. Lee was her anchor after the end of the worlds; now, her world had ended again, and she had nothing to hold onto tightly this time. Helo was her friend, the Chief- but they had duties and families now as well. And no one had known her better than pre-New Caprica Lee. Tears pricked behind her eyes, a hollow feeling grew in her chest, and suddenly, she didn't want to go anywhere but to her bunk.

Kara held it together long enough to get out of the brig and make her way to her old bunk. Luck was with her, as no one was in the bunkroom when she entered. It allowed her to avoid the need to play Starbuck and just curl up behind her curtains instead and be Kara. Mourning, confused, and sick at heart Kara Thrace, tears streaming down her face as silent sobs shook her entire body.


	4. Chapter 3

**Title- _Aftermath_**

Work In Progress 

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 4?

**Date-** 8-20-06

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

Word Count- 1056 

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Chapter Three

Kara had spent the last hour in her bunk trying to rest and repair the damage done to her face from the silent crying jag she had indulged in. It was probably a futile effort, and Adama would never comment on it, but she didn't want the Old Man to see her that way. Starbuck, after all, did not cry. She yelled, she hit, she kicked Cylon ass, but she DID NOT cry, especially over a guy. In her best years, she had been a love 'em and leave 'em kind of girl. It made things easy for her. Zach had screwed that up first, then Lee, and finally Anders.

And none of those had ended well.

The one man she could count on in her life was Bill Adama. He did not judge her, he did not try to change her. He simply accepted her. He was, for all intents and purposes, her father. And right now, she badly needed the comfort that came from that type of silent acceptance. One semi-confrontation with Lee had wiped her out. How the hell was she going to be able to deal with him on a more regular basis? Hell, if she was this emotionally volatile, how the hell was she going to handle flying a Viper?

Carefully pulling back her rack curtains, she crossed the room to her locker. It was her locker, but it wasn't. There were some new clothes there for her- two dress uniforms, some BDUs, some sweats and boots- but the picture of her, Zak, and Lee that had always been the first thing she saw in it was gone. It, along with her idols and everything else she owned, had been left or destroyed on Caprica and New Caprica.

The only item she still possessed was clutched frantically in her hand, digging deep impressions into the flesh of her palm and thumb. Even through the worst of times, she had managed to keep Zach's simple silver band, his promise to her of a happy, bright future. She remembered the semi-fight that the ring had caused, a veiled argument of smiles and harsh whispers under their breath. It was so stupid, really. Somehow, after a film at a mall cineplex far from the base- one of their rare real "dates," given the secretive nature of their relationship- she and Zach had drifted into a jewelry shop. Ostensibly, it was to look for a birthday present for Caroline Adama; although it quickly became some thing else when Zack spied a big diamond engagement ring in the window and goaded her into trying it on.

She hadn't wanted to. Talk of anything beyond the moment of their relationship made her nervous. Being out in public, while he was still her student and she could loose her commission, made her nervous. Standing there, with Zack's arm around her and his silly, happy grin and a diamond on her finger, made her almost pass out. She had twisted the ring off as if it burned her and walked out of the store. Zack had followed quickly, refusing to let the topic go. He insisted that he wanted to buy her a promise ring, today. She realized, then, that that had been his plan all along, and she was not happy.

It had taken another hour of hushed arguing at the food court to explain that she would simply refuse to wear such a ring. Zack could waste all the money he wanted on it, but it would sit unworn in a box, gathering dust on a pawn shop shelf after she dumped him over it. Practical reasons aside- secret relationship, Zack?- it simply wasn't her. She was a viper pilot, with calloused hands and short, plain nails. She had been a pyramid player, with nicks and scars all over her hands. Her hands were not well matched with a fancy ring. The argument had gone on during the ride home, as well, as she sped down back roads in her dilapidated old army jeep, leaving Zack off blocks before campus to walk back to his dorm room, as per usual after spending time together.

She had gone home and studied her capable, strong, and decidedly unfeminine hands for hours. She longed to have Zack's ring there, bright and sparkly and a constant, indisputable, physical reminder of his love when she was away from him. A literal rock to cling to, when the feelings of guilt and worthlessness enveloped her during the dark, lonely hours of the nights.

Somehow, Zack had figured it out, or he was more stubborn than her- she could never decide which it was. One month after the ring debacle, another sort of ring appeared on her kitchen counter one night when she got home. Tied to a miniature model of a viper with a slim, white ribbon, was this flat, simple band, inscribed with, "To be among the stars, together." There was no bad poetry or cliches about forever, no sparkles or impractical jewels, nothing so fancy or remarkable that she would have to hide it while on duty or base. It wasn't even sized for the traditional ring finger, but her thumb- much more like out-of-the-box and unique Kara.

All in all, the perfect ring for her.

She had been incredibly touched by it, and had worn the ring ever since. It was her touchstone during the bad times, those before and after the end of the worlds. She lost count of the times she had studied the picture of her and the Adama boys as she clutched that tiny piece of metal. Closing her eyes, she began the traditional intonation to prayer- _Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer…_- as she held on to that ring as if it were her idols, praying to it. _Let me face my past in the present, and let me draw strength from the family I have created. Give me the strength to turn my enemies into friends, to forgive the unforgivable from those I love, and allow me the strength to forget the bad and remember the good._ She prayed fervently for the last, hoping that nightmares and emotions about New Caprica would just go away.

Taking a deep breath, Kara put on the unfamiliar feeling dress blues for the first time in over a year and prepared to face the Old Man.


	5. Chapter 4

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 5/?

**Date-** 11-13-06

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **1037

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3- it's AU after that…

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

I admit it, I am a review/comment whore. Please feel free to comment, even if it is to criticize.

I apologize to all those who actually read this story- Real Life had just intruded terribly on my fictional world these days. I do plan on finishing my fics- but you'll just have to bear with my irregular updates….at least until things settle down again.

Chapter Four

Lee knocked smartly on the hatch to his father's quarters. It was less than an hour until the Admiral's dinner with Kara; Lee fervently hoped that he had not been summoned to join them. He didn't think that he could sit through an evening of their chuminess- he really had no better word to describe their antics during an evening together off duty. Worse yet, he didn't think he could bear it if their time apart had made the relationship between Kara and his father awkward, either; Lee wasn't the only one who had missed her. And most especially, he knew that he couldn't listen to what had happened to Kara on the planet first-hand. The reports that had passed his desk were horrible enough.

Than there was his guilt. His wife had died to protect the woman he had tried to use Dee to replace. Spending time around Kara would only force him to note and catalog the many differences between Dee and Kara, and question himself yet again about why he had felt so little true grief for his wife's death.

Lee really needed to be somewhere else this evening.

He pushed that thought and a thousand others away in the few seconds it took his father to call out and tell him to come on in. His father was on his leather sofa, two glasses and a bottle of ambrosia on the coffee table. There was nary a paper or report in sight, and Lee felt his heart sink. This couldn't be official business then. "You paged me, Admiral?"

Adama sighed, "It's just Dad tonight, Lee."

"Okay, Dad," Lee emphasized the familial term. "You paged me?"

Bill saw how thin Lee's control over his temper currently was. That wasn't good, given the request he wanted to make. "Have a drink," Bill poured a glass.

Lee gritted his teeth. "You know that I'm on duty, Dad."

Sitting back more comfortably on the sofa and unbuttoning the top two buttons of his jacket, Adama shook his negatively. "Not as of five minutes ago. I asked Helo to stand in for you."

"Dad-" Lee started. "I'm not staying for dinner."

"Kara went through hell on that planet." Adama sipped his ambrosia, causing a knot to form in the pit of Lee's stomach. His father rarely drank; if he needed a drink to have this conversation, Lee knew that it wasn't one he wanted to be a part of. "And she spent three weeks in sick bay before she recovered enough to go back on duty, during which time you did not go to see her even once." Adama's feet went up on the table, his glass resting on his stomach. "I know you had an argument before she left for the planet and that you weren't getting along. I think it's time that you mended fences."

"Don't mettle." Lee's voice was steely and low. "This is between Kara and I, and that's where it will stay."

"I don't want to know what it was about." The senior Adama took another sip. "There are things that parents don't want- or need- to know about their children. I simply want the matter settled. You are two of the senior most officers on this ship, and you need to be able to deal with each other. That's it."

"Dad, it's personal stuff, it won't effect our working together-" Lee tried to cut his father off.

"We both know better. I could tell if you and Dee had a fight simply by the way either of you answered the Comm." Adama looked Lee directly in the eye, measuring Lee's response. If possible, Lee tensed even more. "Yes, I was fully aware that you and Dee were having problems. As a father, I wanted to talk to you about it, to help; as an admiral of the last two battlestars in existence, planning an operation to save humanity, I had to ignore it in favor of more important things."

Lee sighed. "Dee and I-"

Adama held up his hand. "It's up to you if you ever want to discuss it. I am not asking you to if you don't want to, if it's too close to having lost her-" He coughed. "We both know that I am not that type of father who deals well with emotion."

Lee nodded. "Maybe another time…it might do me good to talk about it a little. But not now, and not with Kara due here in-" he looked at his watch- "ten minutes."

"So you won't stay for dinner?" Adama sat forward and placed the glass back on the table, significantly emptier. "I'm not going to make it an order- yet. I will give you a week to work things out with Kara, judged to my satisfaction, before I interfere more closely and officially."

"No, I'm no staying for dinner." Lee rose and considered saluting briefly. "Enjoy the time with Kara, Dad. I know that you missed her." Lee bit his lip and momentarily looked away. "I'll let Helo know that he can go-"

"No, Lee." Adama sighed. "Take the time. You need it more than Helo right now."

Lee hastily agreed, wanting desperately to be out of his father's quarters before Kara showed up. "Thanks," he nodded, and high-tailed it out of there. So intent on avoiding Kara, he hadn't really considered where he was going. Somehow, he ended up in the passage near the gym, and decided that maybe en evening of pushing his body to its limits might be a good thing. He had been avoiding the gym since Kara had gotten back, trying to keep from meeting her there as they used to. Knowing her, she was probably sneaking out of sick bay and going to the gym to try and force herself into better shape more quickly.

Crossing the threshold, he considered his options briefly before heading to the heavy bag. His father wanted this thing with Starbuck resolved; in his heart of hearts, Lee wasn't sure it ever could be. He needed to think over some things, and come to some decisions. He needed to put the memory- and guilt- of Dee aside, and consider his future.

His, and Kara's.


	6. Chapter 5

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 6/?

**Date-** 11-3-06

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3- its completely AU after that…

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

I admit it, I am a review/comment whore. Please feel free to comment, even if it is to criticize.

I apologize to all those who actually read this story- Real Life had just intruded terribly on my fictional world these days. I do plan on finishing my fics- but you'll just have to bear with my irregular updates….at least until things settle down again.

Chapter Five

Kara made her way slowly through the steel corridors that had been more her home than anywhere else she had ever dwelled. The walls, gray and worn, nicked and scratched and, in places, scorched, were reassuring. She was still reacquainting herself with the Bucket, and each tiny observance that things hadn't irrevocably changed during her absence was a tiny step back to herself.

The walk to the admiral's quarters was brief, ever at her unhurried pace. When she reached the hatch, it was partially opened and she smelled a waft of thick, rich smoke. Kara paused, tapping three swift times with a deep breath.

"Whadda ya hear, Starbuck?" echoed through the opening.

A smile spread widely across her face. "Nothing but the rain, sir," she intoned as she stepped through and over the threshold, to be engulfed in Adama's firm, smoky embrace. It was the first real human contact she had had since returning from the planet, and it broke down a barrier she hadn't realized she had built.

"Grab you gun and bring in the cat," Adama whispered, his arms tightening.

Kara choked back a sob. "Boom, boom, boom-" she whispered back, feeling a hint of dampness grow against her hair near the Admiral's location. The unexpected emotion pouring out of him reduced her to shuddering tears for the second time today.

"Let it out, Kara. It's okay." Bill held her and gently rocked her back and forth like a baby. "You've been through so much-" he cut himself off as his voice thickened. Clearing his throat, he brushed a kiss against her temple. "I'm glad you're home."

"So am I," Kara agreed, extraditing herself from Bill's embrace after sheltering in it for a few more minutes and getting herself under control. Bill let her go, keeping his hands on her shoulders and staring into her eyes. She could not meet his; the guilt of leaving him as she had, the need to hide the damage that frakking planet had done to her soul, overwhelmed her for a moment. She didn't trust herself not to break down again.

Adama forced her to meet his eyes, pulling her chin and head up to his level gently. "You don't need to talk about it, Kara. I read the reports; I understand what happened to you. When you're ready, I'm here." A longer moment of silence, and Bill changed the mood quickly, turning to lead Kara over to the leather sofa and ambrosia still out from Lee's visit. He poured a few fingers worth and handed one glass to Kara, keeping the other for himself as he settled down, and indicated that she should take a cigar from the open humidor. He then motioned for her to sit, which she did, sinking into the deep cushions and sipping her drink.

"How are you doing with settling back in?" Bill asked in a rather bland tone.

"Aside from my quick return to hack," Kara shot him a crooked grin, puffing away to start her stogie, "so far, so good."

Bill took a long puff. "Have you caught up with the other pilots? Gotten the latest gossip?"

Kara laughed, blowing out smoke. "You know everything that goes on on this ship, I know, but do you really care who's thinking of frakking whom?"

Coloring a little, Bill chuckled. "No. But I like to know the state of my troops."

"I'm good, sir. As well as can be expected." Kara concentrated on her glass, studying the quality of the green liquor.

"'As well as can be expected' isn't good, Kara." Bill looked at her closely. "But I hope that getting to fly again tomorrow will get you a little closer to 'good.'"

The wistful look on Kara's face told him that he was right. Sometimes it was difficult to read Starbuck, but time had made it easier for him. She might not be his daughter by birth, but she had made her way into his heart, and he wished for her to be happy again. He had missed her laughter and humor in the long dark months of hiding from the Cylons and plotting the rescue of the colonists.

The rest of the evening was spent eating a mildly flavorful meal, the usual mush supplemented with some real vegetables, a fact that Kara was more than impressed with. Conversation grew easier as time passed, and Kara found the evening flew by. The time spent tonight had done almost as much for her morale as she felt flying tomorrow would do. The only sour note for the evening was as she got ready to leave, and Bill brought up the topic of Lee.

"I don't want to know the details, Starbuck," Bill slipped back into commander mode with the use of her call-sign. "But whatever happened between you and Lee before you moved to the planet- it needs to be resolved. You are going to be working together very closely again, and I don't think the rest of the crew can take the tension if you two aren't getting along."

She had frozen for moment, not sure how to respond. It wasn't an order yet- just a request- but she had the distinctly uneasy impression that it would become one if she didn't take care of it on her own. "I'll try, sir," was the only response she could think to give. Adama obviously didn't know the cause of their rift, but had guessed something of the depth of it. Hopefully, he also realized that she couldn't mend this fence on her own.

"That's all I can ask, now isn't it?" Bill smiled warmly at her as he walked her to his door, catching her in another fierce embrace. "I'm glad you made it back, Kara."

"So am I, sir," was all that Kara could muster for a reply, crushed against the Admiral's uniform jacket for a long moment before being released and allowed to leave. She felt the Admiral's eyes on her down the long corridor until she turned out of sight, and the memory of her welcome back warmed her as her way through the space-chilled corridors to the officers' bunkroom.


	7. Chapter 6

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 6/?

**Date-** 11-3-06

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3- its completely AU after that…

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

_A good friend of mine passed away this week. She was also a writer and, though single, way busier than me. She was the type of person who wanted to do and try everything, just experience the world and then write about it for the rest of us. She was far too young to leave us, and the only way I can make sense of her death is if I take her advice about how to live life. One of her pieces of advice was to keep writing, so here I am._

_I know, it's been a terribly long time, but my children/job/husband/house are not leaving a great deal of free time to write these days, and my muse keeps throwing new story ideas at me to write. Sorry it's short, sorry it's taken so long, but here's a new chapter I hope you enjoy._

Chapter Six

Not even the emotional outpouring during her dinner with the Old Man, on top of her earlier break down, had taxed Starbuck enough to want to go directly to sleep. The nervous excitement of getting to fly again tomorrow made her restlessness worse. The weeks of enforced inactivity- even if they were for good reason- were catching up with her all at once, and she could not bring herself to lay down in her bunk and draw the curtain. Not wanting to disturb the other pilots, most of whom were trying to sleep right now and those that weren't having drawn their rack curtains, she decided to work through it as she always had- with physical activity. Pulling on her boots- running shoes long gone in that hell hole of a Cylon occupied planet- she started a light run through the familiar corridors.

As late as it was and far from a shift change, most corridors were empty, even on the now crowded battlestar. She was as grateful for the long, open halls as for the quiet. Running on New Caprica had been a messy proposition, mud and cold and uneven ground making it one of her last choices for exercise- a first in her life. On a battlestar, running was the only exercise outside of the gym aside from flying it self. She has missed it, along with a thousand other smaller details.

Her mind always worked best on her problems if her body was distracted. Pushing herself hard, breath coming in gasps, Starbuck ran flat out through the echoing, vibrating corridors, the ship alive beneath her feet. She ran until she had to stop and bend over, struggling for breath, and resumed at a more leisurely pace as soon as she was able. The edge of her uneasiness was burned away in the exertion, and she settled down into a comfortable gait, relaxed, and let her thoughts wander.

Her thoughts immediately wandered to the huge problem that she needed to think through before the morning briefing. How to get Lee Adama to forgive and, if not forget, quit carrying a grudge.

And how to bury her own long smoldering anger at him.

They had both caused this rift; they would both need to heal it. But in her heart, she was not sure that she could forgive him anymore than he could, apparently, forgive her. At the best of times, she and Lee were never easy; when it was bad, the entire ship knew it and couldn't avoid it. So she understood the Old Man's directive. She really did.

But that didn't mean that she couldn't resent it.

Why was it on her to end this mess? She had screwed up, sure, but how could Lee expect any different from her? She had told him again and again that frakking things up was her special talent. She had excelled at that better, over the years, than even flying. So how could he have been surprised? Angry? It was to be expected, and it was his fault that he didn't see it coming. You should always look out for the other shoe to drop with Kara Thrace.

How exactly has this happened? She let the scene play out in her head as she passed the darkened mess and shuttered laundry, running it like a flight film, studying it and trying to figure out how best to improve her performance for the next mission.

Three years before the Galactica's scheduled de-commissioning

Zak's wide, hopeful smile slowly wavered, shrunk a bit, but still held firmly on his face until she stood up and walked away. "I think you should leave, Zak," was the last thing she coldly said to him as the bathroom door closed behind her. Kara waited until she heard the front door slam behind him several long minutes later before she let the tears fall.

Why did he have to do this? Why did he have to do this now? In another year, she wouldn't be his flight instructor any more, she wouldn't be a superior officer. In another year, if she didn't frak things up in the meantime, she might have allowed herself to entertain the thought of becoming Mrs. Zak Adama. But not now. She could not say yes, give him false hope, that whatever it is they had would make a lasting marriage.

And if she was honest with herself- which she tried to be, though she often failed- she wasn't sure that she could love him enough. Her own life was one devoid of love and loving relationships. She wasn't sure how it was done, but she knew damn well that they couldn't be carried out in secret with the fear of being caught hanging over their heads. Any discussion of their future had to wait, had to, until he graduated flight school.

And why tonight, before he left for two weeks of basic flight maneuvers that she was not in charge of or there for? All these bad feelings, the strain of them, would sit with them both the entire time they were apart. She clamped down on those emotions, tried to force them under lock and key until they could both deal with them, but it wasn't working.

She went through the first week of separation angry and short tempered, even for her. Her Captain remarked upon it, but dropped it when she shrugged it off, blaming it on monthly hormones. Her temper grew even shorter as she listened in on some of the pilot banter during the ops, recorded and relayed to her for evaluation of the training once the nuggets got back. Zak was fine. Zak sounded happy, not at all moody and unhappy like her. He was even flirting with another pilot, she was sure of it, knowing that tone of voice intimately.

That bastard. Asked her to marry him, than ran off and started flirting with another girl, where he knew she would hear about it. It was one thing to be unhappy with her, quite another to rub it in her face. By the time Friday came around, she was more than ready to go to happy hour with some other officers from the training program. She drank too much, too fast, and hit the wall much earlier than she had anticipated. Her fellow pilots poured her into a cab and sent her home, which was where she had found him.

Lee was sitting on her front steps, looking impatient and a touch annoyed. When she arrived, he stood up to greet her- and ended up catching her as she stumbled out of the vehicle. Drunk as she was, she gave him a very enthusiastic welcome, before puking on his shoes.


	8. Chapter 7

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 8/?

**Date-** 12-29-06

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **1295

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Please excuse some odd break lines that I can't seem to remove from the document, short of re-typing the whole damn thing.

Chapter Seven

Lee had gotten a last-minute, five day pass to Caprica. He had headed directly to Zak's girlfriend's apartment once he arrived planet-side, knowing that was where his little brother would be for the weekend. When he had arrived to a dark apartment and no one answered the door or phone, he'd sat down on the steps to wait as he had a dozen times before. An hour later, he'd gone to get a drink and some food at a bar he knew Zak and Kara frequented.

Two hours, three drinks, and several dances with some hot but vapid blond later, Lee returned to a dark apartment and waited some more. He was about to leave when a cab pulled up in front and a very unsteady Kara slipped out. Seeing him, she had broken out into a huge smile and clapped him into a bear hug- right before puking all over his boots.

Lee had sat Kara down on the steps, precariously balanced and pale white beneath her blush of embarrassment. He paid the cabbie, removed his boots, and half-carried Kara into her apartment. He had known her in flight school, albeit somewhat casually, and for the several months she had been dating Zak. He had seen her drunk dozens of times, simply buzzed from drinking more often than that. She had never been quite this drunk before, ever. What was wrong with her?

She shrugged it off when he inquired, saying Zak was on maneuvers but that he was welcome to stay here anyway. She started a half-dozen topics, skidding from one to another haphazardly and failing to complete a single meaningful statement on any of them. She refused to go to bed, insisted on 'entertaining' him. She nearly dropped his beer on the brief walk from the fridge to her sofa and managed to pull down a dozen items on her head when she tried to get out the extra linens from her closet. Lee finally declared that he needed some shut eye, even if she didn't, and then she had apologized profusely for being a bad hostess before sloppily stumbling off for the night.

The next morning Lee knocked gently on her bedroom door to see if she wanted to go running with him, as was his usual practice when he visited. When Kara didn't answer, he knocked again louder, this time eliciting a semi-conscious groan that caused him to crack open the door. She was tangled in the sheets, sprawled across the bed, her eyes opened to tiny slits, and in no shape for a run. He shut the door quietly and left to run on his own.

Kara was still passed out in her room when he returned over an hour later. This was way beyond the pale, even for the legendary Starbuck. Lee started a pot of coffee before showering, hoping the aroma would draw her out of her cocoon. . He heard her begin to stir as he was toweling off; then the soft sounds of shifting sheets were quickly replaced by pounding feet and then an explosive slam as she shoved open the bathroom door. She ran past him to throw up, repeatedly. Securing the towel around his wet hips, he held her hair back until she was finished heaving, then helped her back to her bed.

Lee mentally cringed from the memory of the next few days. Once Starbuck had surfaced from her hung-over hell, she had given him an edited version of recent events. Kara and Zak were over, she announced in an indescribable tone; she would not have shared this with him on her own, but for his relentless pestering over the condition he had found her. He refused, in some misguided sense of brotherly duty, to give up questioning her until she gave him some sort of explanation or a punch. Truly, he had expected a punch first.

Lee had never presumed to understand the workings of his baby brother's mind. Zak was smart and funny, and more personable than Lee ever was himself. But Zak was also flighty and a bit self-centered- though not selfish. Zak never deliberately put himself ahead of others; it was always unconscious. And Zak was shallow. He never cared about the big picture. He liked things simple and easy to understand. Lee had never thought that Zak would find a woman to put up with that, and was more than surprised when Kara seemed to be it.

He certainly didn't understand why Zak risked a not-yet-begun career for Kara, who was most definitely not the type of girl you took home. Or why Kara risked the promise of an amazing flying career for Zak. After spending time with Kara and Zak, and listening to Zak's tone when he talked about Kara, Lee had begun to have a glimmering of an understanding, though. Kara herself had also grown on him. She was rough around the edges; she was blunt and cursed like a sailor. She would fight at the drop of a hat and had a nasty right hook. She tended to drink too much. But she was also honest, loyal; committed to values that Lee shared. She was boyish yet pretty; her body toned but not enough to lose her womanly curves. And she flew like she was part of the bird, instinctually and masterfully. It took Lee's breath away to watch her.

And now, watching her fall apart over his brother, his heart broke even further along with hers.

Lee had come to see his brother and Kara in order to forget his own grief, not to share in theirs. Gianne had disappeared after they had had a horrible argument; she was no where to be found, and no one who knew where she was would share the information with him. Time was running out, if he was to be able to change the course of events he had set into motion. Had she done it? Lee had made a mistake, he knew, driving her and their unborn child away from him, and it would soon be too late for him to make it right. Kara's grief was almost a welcome distraction from his own.

And so Lee had fallen into doggedly trying to cheer Kara up, staying with her instead of heading to a hotel, using her unhappiness as a shield against his own. Unfortunately, trying to cheer Kara up usually involved a great deal of alcohol, several fistfights, and losing a lot of money to her while playing triad. He should just have gone home, or tried again to find Gianne. He never should have gotten as drunk as he did; he should never have let her get so drunk, either.

And he should never, ever have told her to take her shirt off so that he could clean the knife wound from that bar fight.

Present, on Galactica…

Lee gritted his teeth and dug into the heavy bag, the chains creaking harshly beneath the sound of leather hitting leather. Events that were painful enough to live through once kept playing through his mind, and he had no way to replace them or turn them off. Everything he remembered these days was painful, both from before and after the attack. Since the battle for New Caprica, since the loss of Dee, he rarely smiled. Rarely felt the urge to. His life was like a black and white movie with no sound. Nothing stirred him, troubled him, made him want to be alive, much less happy.

Except Kara. She didn't make him happy, no, but his hatred of her kept Lee from feeling completely bland and lifeless. It gave him a small, unhealthy purpose. At least it was a reason to get out of bed.


	9. Chapter 8

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 9/?

**Date-** 1-14-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **2,147

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

This took me quite a while to find the quiet space of time that I needed to get into the Kara/Lee exchange and emotions. I hope that it was worth the wait.

If these funny break lines are still in once this is posted, I apologize. I cannot seem to get rid of them. (Feel free to give advice on that, because it is really staring to annoy me. I don't want to have to start a new document and re-type the other chapters that I am working on. Cutting and pasting into a new document had only made the problem worse!)

Chapter Eight

There were very few pilots at the 0600 briefing that Kara did not recognize, even the ones from Pegasus, though Helo was the only one who greeted her warmly and without sidelong glances. The old Starbuck would have called someone on that; the new, more fragile Kara let it pass but noted it. Her assignments for the next week were two CAPs, one this afternoon, with an old hand pilot from the Peggy, and three maintenance shifts. With only one ship, but two ships' worth of personnel, the days of exhausting, never ending shifts was gone. People had more free time on their hands than ever before, though damn little to fill it with.

Kara sat and listened with half an ear to Helo's morning report, catching the important stuff but able, after all these years, to keep thinking in the background as it went on. She was itching to climb into her Viper and lose herself in the stars. The thought was calming.

Her inner serenity was shattered, though, at Helo's attentive posture and call of "Commander on deck!" She felt Lee's eyes on her as he made his way to the podium, but refused to look directly back at him. She was therefore caught off guard when he personally welcomed her back in front of all the other pilots, and could only manage a head nod. Lee seemed okay with that response, however, and left soon after his own quick nod in return.

What the frak? She wondered. At their last meeting he was so cold and mean and now he was greeting her like a missed and valued member of the crew? The total about face, blowing hot and cold like that, did not surprise her. She had known him long enough and well enough to realize that he was almost as emotionally crippled in his own way as she was, and that this was his way of apologizing for his treatment of her in the brig without actually apologizing.

That didn't make her less angry about it, but made it easier to clamp down on her emotions and lock them away to be considered later. She shifted in her seat, playing unconsciously with her pen, letting Helo's voice distract her from the memories of the past that the Admiral's seemingly simple request- set things right with Lee- had brought to the surface of her mind.

There was nothing to distract Kara once she was in the cockpit later that day. Her wingman for the shift was not the talkative type, and there had not been a Cylon sighting in weeks. Even after so long out of the cockpit, flying was second nature to Starbuck. She didn't have to think about what to do, it was instinct; it was a talent few shared, and what made her the best pilot in the fleet. But it also meant that there was nothing to keep her mind busy, and she kept finding it pulled back to Lee, as it always did when she flew.

Not long after the discovery of New Caprica…

Kara woke up slowly, shaking her head as if to clear it of the fog currently engulfing her mind. The last thing she remembered was a firefight, some scary moves even for her, and then trying to land her bird. In the midst of catching the trap, she had felt light-headed and tried to pull up to take another pass, then nothing.

The overwhelming glare of fluorescent lights and surroundings drowning in graying white told her, even through her partially opened eyes that she was in sickbay. Frak. That meant that she had crashed then. Kara begin a slow, mental inspection of her body, stretching muscles and feeling for any damage. Her knee had seemingly escaped further injury- she would have immediately felt the throb of re-injury if it hadn't- but she hadn't come out of it scot-free. Her arm was restrained, so she assumed broken, and her stomach and pelvis ached horrendously. She must have been thrown across the cockpit in the landing.

She was still feeling out her injuries when the unmistakable cloud of smoke that followed Doc Cottle everywhere but the operating room began to seep around her curtain just as it was roughly yanked back. "Well, Starbuck. How nice to see you again."

"Can't say the same, Doc." She spoke through gritted teeth. "How bad is it?"

Doc pulled a drag, before stubbing out his cigarette and flipping through her chart. "There's good and bad. You fractured your arm, but that's the only lasting injury."

She released a breath she didn't realize that she had been holding. "The baby is okay, then?"

Lee's heart jumped as he heard Kara's words through the curtains. Baby? She was pregnant? Wait, she knew she was pregnant, and she was still flying? And she had said nothing to him? Judging from Cottle's words, she hadn't told the doctor either.

"I wondered if you knew. It might have been easier if you didn't." Cottle hesitated a second, and that spoke volumes. "The baby didn't survive. It was too soon to tell if it was a boy or girl yet."

"How old, Doc?" Kara asked in an unsteady voice.

"Almost two months, I think." Cottle lit another cigarette. "Why didn't you say anything? You know you shouldn't have been flying."

"It doesn't matter now." Kara drew a deep breath. Lee could hear the tears she was fighting down in her voice. "And the kid is better off this way, anyway. I'm not fit to take care of a dog, much less a child."

Cottle took another drag. "I can't say that I would challenge that right now. You should be out of here in three days; maybe two. Six more weeks until the cast can come off and another two before you're flying."

Lee was so absorbed in eavesdropping and the implications of Kara's comments that Cottle almost ran Lee over as he came through the curtains. One look at Lee's face had Cottle shaking his head. "She's all yours, Commander," Cottle fired over his shoulder as he beat a hasty retreat. The storm on Lee's face pretty much answered any questions Cottle may still have had about Starbuck's pregancy.

Lee should have taken a moment to gather himself and calm down before he barreled into Starbuck's cubicle, but the shock of the situation overrode his usual common sense. Starbuck had tears streaming down her face, but that didn't deter him one bit. Anger flared up through the shock, searing his heart and making him unable to hold his tongue. "Whose was it?"

Starbuck held her head high, as if she knew that he had been on the other side of that curtain. He realized that she had known that he would find out sooner or later, and had been preparing for this conversation all along. "It doesn't matter now, Lee."

Lee roughly yanked a metal chair across the floor and over to the side of her bed. He kept his voice low, but the anger was still unmistakable. "Yes, Kara, it does matter."

"It doesn't. There is no baby anymore, Lee, and its for the better." Kara wiped angrily at the tears and snot pooling on her chin. "I would make a lousy mother."

Lee closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It does matter, Kara. But right now it matters more that you knew and didn't report it. You shouldn't have been flying."

"And doesn't this just prove that I shouldn't be a mother?" Kara gulped air into her lungs; it felt like she couldn't breathe from the pressure of trying to keep her emotions in control. "I couldn't give up flying, Lee. So I said nothing. I thought I had time to decide what to do-"

"Decide what to do?" Lee's eyes popped open. "There is no decision, Kara. You were having a baby-"

"Don't give me that holier than thou shit, Lee. The President can say what she wants, she can't have kids anymore. She has no right to force the idea on anyone else." Kara angrily raked her hands through her head.

"Again- what about the father, Kara? Shouldn't he have had some say in this?" Lee spoke quietly, but in a deadly, anger-filled voice.

"I-" Kara turned away from Lee. "I wasn't sure who it was."

"Bullshit, Kara," Lee snarled out. "We both know what happened two months ago. Was it mine, or not?"

Kara turned to face him, looking him clearly in the eye. "I wasn't lying, Lee. I really wasn't sure. But I think it was yours."

The blood drained from Lee's face. If he hadn't already been sitting down, he would have collapsed on the floor. "You thought it was mine, but you didn't say anything? Why not?"

Kara laughed, an angry, hurt sound. "Lee, I know we did what we did because we both thought that we were going to die on that planet and that Galactica would never find us in time. We almost did die before the Raptor got there. And there's that little matter of your wife."

Lee had the good sense to look shamed. "I didn't tell Dee anything-"

"She's not stupid. She figured it out, once you started avoiding me." Kara closed her eyes and leaned back on the crisp white sheets. "She point blank asked me, Lee, and I lied to her. I told her that nothing had happened between us down there, and that I had no clue why you were avoiding me. I could tell that she didn't believe me, but I lied for you."

"I never asked you to lie for me, Kara." Lee spat out.

"You'll be glad that I did, now." Kara stated bitterly.

"Like you lied to Zak for me, too?" Lee whispered.

Kara sat up abruptly, her eyes wild. "What are you talking about?"

"After that leave, and the bar fight- I felt guilty about what we had done. You never told me that Zak had proposed to you. He told me." Lee scrubbed at his face. "He never told you that he knew?"

"No," Kara mumbled. "How could you have told him, and not told me he knew?"

Lee rose and began pacing. "The better question is, why didn't Zak tell you? Did he tell you that he knew about the abortion, too?"

"What?" Kara yelped, almost unable to draw breath back into her lungs.

"The clinic called to follow up on you the next day. He was there, you weren't. He called me to ask what he should do." Lee stopped at his chair, leaning on the back with both strong hands clamped down so tightly that his knuckles shone white. "Was that one mine, too, Kara, or was it Zak's?"

Kara's face took on a deathly paleness, even for her. "I don't know for sure."

"Who else's could it have been, then? How many guys did you sleep with while you and Zak were broken up?"

"It doesn't matter, it's done and over with now. If it wasn't yours or Zak's, it was some nameless, faceless, dead guy's." Kara refused to meet Lee's eyes. "If there'd been a kid, I'd've been dead now, too. I would have been on the planet when the Cylon's attacked."

Lee asked again, in a more insistent and angrier tone. "Was that one mine, too?"

Kara answered quietly, in barely a breath of a whisper. "I told you. I don't know."

Anger- hot, burning, red, made Lee flex his fists and want to hit something. "I can't figure out if you're just an lucky slut, or a heartless murderer. Are there any other Adamas you've killed that you would like to tell me about now?"

"Bastard- go to hell!" Starbuck yelled, struggling to keep her voice down as she angrily confronted him. "You told Gianne you didn't want one weeks before mine. Why would I bother to tell you, when I already knew your answer? Do you think I really wanted to tell Zak that I might be pregnant with his brother's baby? And it really might not have been yours." She turned away from Lee and closed her eyes, as if the conversation was over and she was dismissing him. "Hell, it might not have been Zak's, either."

Lee refused to take the hint. His voice equally as angry as Starbuck's, he leaned close to her ear and asked one last time. "Was this one mine?"

She wouldn't turn to face him or open her eyes. "I told you. I don't know. And now it doesn't matter." She turned over on her side, as best she could with one arm in a sling, giving Lee her back. Lee walked away from her, at that point, escaping sickbay and the guilt of the past, freshly overturned and mixed with much more recent regret.


	10. Chapter 9

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 10/?

**Date-** 2-12-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **1561

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Again- this is becoming repetitive- I apologize for the lag between posts. I do have several other sections of this already written, so hopefully the next few will come fast and furious. My main problem with this story is the confusing time line with flash backs- it's not a common thing for me to use. So- any comments on that would be very helpful…HINT HINT HINT.

And while this chapter is very Dee/Lee- K/L shippers, keep hope. It's just one flashback. She's dead and gone already, remember? She will probably only appear in one more chapter, at least in any length. However, I will not portray her as unredeemable, as much as I really dislike her on the show and hope she's a Cylon and/or dies soon. It's simply not fun to write for a completely unredeemable character.

Thank you for all your comments on past chapters!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PTBvisiongrrl

Chapter Nine

_About a month before the Battle for New Caprica…_

Dee had made Lee promise to be back in quarters for a private dinner by 1600 sharp. She was planning something special, and he better be there. The tone was joking yet there was evident tension in her voice. Lee and Dee had been getting along well- as well as two people locked in a marriage where at least one partner loved someone else could get along- and it made Lee nervous. Dee didn't often demand much of him; subtle guilt often worked better and was her preferred method. Open demand did not bode well.

He was sure to be on time, with no made-up pilot issues or CIC crises to keep him away. For a large ship, the Pegasus ran surprisingly well, with very few problems these days as the crew became skeletonized as a result of enforced colonization. The legacy of a blood thirsty but capable captain as well, he supposed in a remote acknowledgement to the dead Cain.

Lee could sense something was off the minute he stepped through the hatch into his personal quarters. The smell of real food, not processed protein; candles flickering on a real tablecloth, light glinting off a true silverware. It was a rare occasion when either he or Dee were out of uniform these days; she had put on a lavender silk dress that he had never seen before, that wrapped around and accentuated her figure. Both he and Dee had gained some weight since their wedding, Dee far less than he, yet still enough that she had more curves these days. All in all, Dee had gone to a great deal of effort.

The effect on him was to ratchet up his unease, his worry. He knew his marriage was not the best; he knew that it had been begun under somewhat false pretenses; that didn't mean that he didn't want it to succeed. He just wasn't sure how to do that. Lee never dealt well with the unknown, and this relationship was no different.

Was this the night when Dee finally got tired of Kara's ghost fluttering around them constantly?

Dee's smile was bright as she welcomed him home with a dutiful peck on the cheek. "I'm glad you made it on time. Another five minutes and dinner would be ruined."

His voice was a bit sharp as he reminded her of their conversation this morning. "I said that I would be here, didn't I?'

Dualla considered him with those big eyes for a long moment before forcing a slight smile. "Yes, you did. And you always keep your promises." She loosened his jacket for him, taking it to hang-up neatly on the back of their door, whereas he would have slung it over the back of his chair and forgotten about it. He was a long way from the neat and stiff Galactica CAG with a stick up his ass. Allowing Lee to settle into his chair, Dee began serving him some fresh herbed noodles and steamed vegetables, not quite identifiable on sight but reminiscent in taste to more familiar broccoli and carrots.

He dug right in, a full mouth always a convenient excuse not to talk. She ate as well, though more lightly and sparingly, and finished long before him. After sitting and considering him as he continued, she took a deep breath and spoke. " I know that you slept with Starbuck on that planet, Lee," she stated without preamble or emotion. "And I forgive you."

Lee paused, almost choking on the food in his mouth. Placing his chopsticks on the rest next to his setting, he cleared his throat. "Excuse me?"

"I don't blame you. You thought you were dying. You and Kara have a-" she paused, "a history. I married you knowing that."

Refusing to admit guilt or offer a defense, Lee allowed her to continue.

"But I am your future, Lee. Me, and-" Dee took a deep breath and her voice trembled slighty "our baby."

Echoes of the past threatened to swell up with the panic of the present and overwhelm him. Other, similar conversations played out in his head, almost drowning out her words. It took concentrate to speak to her at all, much less intelligently. "Our what?"

Dee placed a hand on the slight swell of her stomach. The new curves, her extra moodiness lately- it all clicked into place for him, and he lost the ability to breathe. "You're pregnant?"

A slight smile played over her lips. "Yes. About a month or so. Cottle wasn't entirely sure yet; something about hormone levels being elevated. Until the ultrasound, we won't know for sure."

Lee felt a sudden flashback to a fading afternoon in a Caprican square, and heard the echo of a voice long dead. His throat closed in the same panicked way as it had almost five years ago; the expression crossing Dualla's face blurred with blond hair and blue eyes above a slight sprinkle of the palest dusting of freckles. The need to escape, to deny, to run exploded in his chest. He took several deep breaths to calm himself down, which only gave Dee time to grow angry.

"I should have known this would be your reaction. We didn't talk about this; we didn't plan this; we didn't think this through. Well, guess what? Accidents happen." Dee stood up and knocked her chair over with the force of it. "You're going to be a daddy, Lee, whether you like it or not. Congratulations!" And she stormed out of their quarters.

Lee had sat there for a good half-hour, so stunned that he couldn't get past the thought that Dee was pregnant. This was the fourth time he had found out that he was or had been going to be a father; sadly enough, this time had gone the best out of the four. Gathering his demons back up and sweeping them into the darkest corner of his mind, he set out to find Dualla and make this right.

The gods- those infernal beings he had never really believed in before- had taken pity on his frak-ups, and given him another chance. The mistakes of his past could be balanced out with this opportunity. Those lost children- lost through his bad choices, his cowardice, his weakness- could never be recovered. He prayed to the gods he barely believed in every day for their lost souls, on the off chance it would do his children some good. He had not been able to do anything else for them. But this child would not be taken away from or lost to him. This child would get the love and dutiful care that the others had never been given a chance at, that he had not been ready to give.

For the first time since their hasty marriage, Lee was seeing clearly. Dualla was his wife, pregnant with their child. She was what mattered. Kara was an evil ghost from his past that needed to be exorcised and forgotten before she became a cancer that ate away at and destroyed the good things in his life. As Lee quickly traveled corridors, eating the metal decking up with his pace so quickly that he had to stop and catch his breath when he spied her staring out the observation deck window into the stars. He watched her for a minute before gathering up the courage to go to her.

Moving up behind her, he made sure that she could see his reflection in the glass so as not to startle her. He paused a hand's breath away before he began to speak. "I apologize for letting Kara into this marriage. This marriage is not about her. This marriage is about us, and now, our child. I-" he had to pause and rapidly blink back tears, giving Dee the opportunity to face him, "don't know how to thank you for this opportunity, for making me see what I should have known all along." He dropped to his knees and circled his arms around her, resting his cheek just at the small swell of her abdomen. "I love you, Dee, and I will love this child. I will cherish you both, forever, if you will let me."

Dualla's eyes widened in surprise, her mouth opening and closing a few times as she searched for words. Lee had father issues; she knew this, given how difficult his relationship with the Admiral had been in his younger years. She and Lee had never discussed this possibility, had never really considered it; they were soldiers in a war, not really parent material. Dee had prepared herself to be alone with her child and a distant husband tied to her by duty, not love. She knew that Lee would help her, to the best of his ability, because Lee was nothing if not cognizant of his responsibilities. But she had feared the loss of his love, which she so tenuously held to begin with. The relief that flooded her gave her hope, for the first time since she had discovered her condition. In the end, she shook her head and rested her arms in a loose embrace over her husband's shoulders. They stood like that for what seemed like forever, a tableau against the dark sparkling of open space, before returning to their cabin hand in hand.


	11. Chapter 10

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 11/?

**Date-** 02-15-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **3191

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

This chapter was a difficult one. I am not a guy and am usually quite astounded at guy logic, so writing Lee and Zak in a believable way was incredible hard. Hopefully, it was worth it. This chapter is chock full of historical K/L/Z angst.

There are at least three more chapters coming; two are in the works, almost fully written but not edited. I will try and update more quickly than I have been.

And comments (hint, hint, hint!!!!) bring chapters more quickly...

PTBvisiongrrl

Chapter Ten

Currently on Galactica

Apollo stared at the Dradis readings, watching the progress of the CAP as he listened to the nearly non-existant pilot chatter. Dusty, an old pilot from the Peggy, was never that talkative, but Starbuck's quiet was odd to him. Even when flying with someone she couldn't stand, Starbuck never shut up.

He wondered what else had changed about her over the past year.

As his mind wandered over the reports of her captivity he had read, he tried to hold on to his anger and dislike of her. It was almost impossible to do so, until he called up darker memories and let them weave a spell about him.

Three years before the Galactica's De-commissioning

"You should have a doctor look at that knife wound, Kara," Lee stated as he helped her sit down on a barstool at her apartment. "It's still bleeding."

Kara vehemently shook her head. "I don't need it getting back to my Captain that I was in another bar fight. I'll just clean it and wrap it myself-"

"You can barely stand, Starbuck!" Lee objected. Shaking his head (and quickly regretting it), he said, "Fine. If you won't have it taken care of the right way, I'll at least do it, so that you won't die of an infection or something. Take off your shirt so that I can get a better look at it..." his words trailed off as she did so, exposing the fact that she was not wearing a bra.

Kara considered him with narrowed eyes. "You never seen a pair before, Apollo?"

He was struck speechless for a long moment, his hands fumbling with the bandages and antiseptic. Lee licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry and the alcohol flowing freely in his veins clouding his judgement. Kara was-

A goddess, a daughter of Artemis. Alabaster skin, moonlight for hair, jade eyes that darkened and lightened with her mood. Amazingly powerful and competent in everything except knowing herself and her uniqueness. In that instant, he saw everything that Zak and every other man saw in her and more. There was, behind her façade, her foul mouth, the walls she built around herself, a purity of spirit.

And, gods damn him, he wanted it. He could not help himself. He leaned in to brush his lips gently against hers, breathless in awe that she would allow him to do so. Any thoughts of right or wrong, any reservations over crossing un-crossable lines, were wiped away as she returned his gesture with more insistence and force than he himself had dared to use. The kiss evolved into something else, something carnal and sacred at the same time. He worshipped her, with his lips, his hands, and eventually his body. Her fire seared his soul as no other female ever had, and he knew himself lost, heart and soul.

Three months later…

The slurred words on the phone, the late hour of the day (or early, depending on your perspective), immediately brought Lee to full and alert consciousness. "Zak?" he asked, simultaneously reaching for the bedside lamp and his BDU's. "What's wrong?"

Zak had been known to drink and call Lee before, but the tone of his voice was different. The usual jovial drunk was serious, somber. "I need to talk to you. I need your advice."

Trying to lighten the mood a bit as he gathered his wits about him, Lee cracked, "I'd lay off the hard stuff and sleep it off…"

"Kara. I need to talk to you about Kara." Lee felt his throat constrict. He had not spoken to Kara since that last leave on Caprica and the drunken events that had damned him. He had slept with his brother's girlfriend- he had wanted her for his own- bad enough by itself, but he also had obligations elsewhere that he had not yet taken care of. He had used Kara badly, wrongly, and in it, Zak as well. Unable to face the situation or resolve it, he had avoided it.

Zak's next words hammered home just how wrong Lee's actions had been. "Kara was pregnant."

_Was?_ Lee tried to find his voice, grateful for the alcohol clouding Zak's usual perceptiveness. "What are you talking about?"

"Kara had an abortion. She never told me she was-" Zak's voice was heavy. Lee could hear the tight control Zak kept over his emotions begin to break down. "How could she?"

"Zak- do you want to do this over the phone, or do you need me to some see you? I have the next two days off- let me see if I can swing an emergency pass- I can be there in a couple hours-" Lee thought furiously. When had this happened? Was it recent? And if so, how had Zak found out? Was it Zak's? Or was it someone else's altogether? And, aside from the fact that Zak obviously needed him, Lee asked no further questions. He pushed down his own concerns in the rush to get to his baby brother. But he couldn't stop thinking… _Kara was pregnant- Zak didn't say how far along- gods, no, gods, no. It couldn't have been mine…_

The early morning transport Lee caught was deserted except for a few soldiers obviously returning to Caprica from leave elsewhere. Most were rumpled and tired, duffles pooled at their feet and uniforms askew. He tried to keep his mind empty, not thinking about Zak's phone call or the last three months. Three long, empty, uncomfortable months. He had left Kara the next morning, unable to promise her anything beyond that night, although he had very much wanted to. Their goodbye was awkward and uncomfortable. It pained him to leave her like that. He had planned to find Gianne, try to talk her into having the baby. He was not interested in a relationship beyond the tie a child would provide, and he highly doubted that she would be now, either. He would settle things with Gianne and then go back to work things out with Kara. He knew it would be a bit weird at first, dating his brother's ex, but she was worth it- every inconvenience and uncomfortable moment, every socially unpleasant incident. Even if Zak was initially against it, Lee would find a way to earn his forgiveness.

But time dragged on, and Gianne was no where to be found. He had tried to call Kara several times, working up enough nerve to dial her number but not to stay on the line until she answered it. He had trashcans full of crumpled, half-started letters, none of which could contain the emotions of what he wanted her to know merely in words on a page. He was worse than a love-sick teenager.

And there was Zak. Lee had barely spoken to Zak since the night with Kara. He didn't know what to say to him, how to tell him that he was in love with Zak's former girlfriend. Sometimes it seemed like a dream, and he wondered for himself if it were real. How had this happened? How had Kara Thrace so suddenly and completely bewitched him?

And now- he was sure that now things were infinitely more complicated.

Zak was actually waiting for Lee at the transportation center. "Lee!" he called out from a bench near the door. Zak was a mess. His BDUs were stained and wrinkled; he smelled strongly of ambrosia and vomit; and he swayed back and forth while he was sitting down. Lee wasn't sure Zak could stand if he tried, and he wondered how the hell his brother had made it here without being stopped by the MPs.

Lee went directly to Zak. "We need to get some coffee in you, little brother. Then we can talk."

Zak nodded, the movement exaggerated and as exact as he could make it. "Okay. The bars are all closed, anyway."

"You don't have to be on duty?" Lee asked, forgetting for a moment that his brother was an adult, just taking care of him as he had when they were younger.

"I know enough to make sure I have time to get drunk before I start drinking, Lee." Zak stood up, unsteady, and draped an arm around Lee. "I'm glad you're here, though, big brother." Stumbling slightly, Lee got Zak to a nearby diner and ordered breakfast for them both, along with a strong, fresh pot of coffee. Once Zak had something inside of him to counteract all the booze, Lee asked the question he had been dreading.

"You called about Kara?" Lee couldn't look Zak in the eye when he asked.

Zak finished chewing the hash browns and laid his fork down on his plate, appetite suddenly gone. "I found out that she had an abortion."

"When?" Lee looked steadily over Zak's left shoulder at an old tear in the leather of the booth.

"Yesterday." Zak pushed his food around a bit and laid his fork down. "The clinic called to follow up with her and she wasn't home. I heard it on the answering machine."

Lee was so focused on the when, he almost missed a more important piece of information. "You were at her apartment? I thought that you two had broken up-"

Zak frowned slightly. "It was like, for two weeks. I never mentioned it to you."

"I, uh," Lee stuttered, "I, um, talked to Kara that week. While you were on maneuvers."

A wariness crept into Zak's eyes. "She told you?" He picked up his coffee mug and cradled it in his hands. "And you didn't ask me about it?"

Trying to think fast, past the urge to puke and the roaring in his ears, Lee couldn't find an acceptable answer. His prolonged silence triggered something in Zak, who sat up straighter. Looking more alert than before, he forced Lee to meet his eyes. "Is there something you want to tell me, Lee?"

Still not sure how to answer- Lee was never a good liar or able to hide his emotions- he said shaikly, "No, not really."

Zak studied that swirls of cream in his coffee. "You sure about that? Nothing about why you might be here so quickly? And so concerned about Kara being pregnant?"

Lee's world bottomed out. Kara had seemed so firm that she and Zak were over. He had never questioned it deeper, just heard what he subconsciously wanted to hear. He so was ashamed of his actions and at the same time so overwhelmed by his emotions that he hadn't had time to play the good brother and actually call Zak. "Um, so you're back together?" He broke out in a cold sweat, his forehead beading up.

"Yes. She finally agreed to marry me. In August, after I graduate. For propriety's sake, she said." Zak's voice was flat, devoid of emotion. Years of fighting with Zak told Lee that that was never good.

Lee's vision narrowed and he felt shaky. "You're engaged? When did this happen?"

There was a moment of quiet, while Zak measured his words. Lee was waiting for it, the question he knew Zak would ask and that he didn't want to answer. "When did you sleep with her?"

It was like a physical blow to the gut, the anger in Zak's eyes. Lee had no defense here, other than he was an selfish idiot. The conversation Lee had been planning in his head for three months did not go like this.

Lee's continued silence swelled between them. Zak downed his cup of coffee and began to shrug on his jacket, suddenly very sober. "We were broken up, Lee. Technically, you didn't do a thing to me. I just thought better of you. My own brother!" Zak shook his head and headed for the door.

Lee jumped up behind him, throwing some money on the table and pulling on his jacket to follow. Zak made it to the bench in the park next door before he had to stop to lean over and throw up. Lee caught up and waited next to him.

Zak's mood was not improved by his hangover. "So you thought you'd just jump into my grave? Zak's out of the picture, who cares how he might feel?" Zak slouched back on the bench, his voice hoarse. "Or did she seduce you? Made you feel all knightly and needed while she was devastated by my loss? Did you even ask what we had broken up about before you frakked her?"

Lee had to answer, his guilt making it necessary to reveal the truth. "No. She was- upset when I got there. She was so messed up- when she got sober enough, I bugged her until she told me what was wrong. She didn't want to tell me; I forced the issue. All she said was that you two were finished. She didn't want to say anymore, and I didn't really want to pry."

"You just wanted into her pants," Zak spat out in disgust.

"It wasn't like that!" Lee struggled to hold in his temper. "I didn't mean for it to happen, Zak, it just did. If I had known-"

"If you had known that she dumped me because I asked her to marry me?" The accusation in Zak's voice stung Lee's conscious further.

Lee could only stutter, "I didn't know- I didn't, or I never would have- Zak!" Lee called out as Zak lurched up and away. Following Zak, Lee kept trying to get him to stop and talk to him. It took three blocks to get a reaction. Zak wheeled around and punched Lee right in the face.

The blossoming pain was welcomed. Lee could never make this up to Zak, but he could willingly take the punishment inflicted. If causing Lee pain made Zak feel better, Lee would take any beating Zak offered. Lee barely offered a defense against the rain of blows. After only a few more swings, Zak gave up, blood on his knuckles, tears in his eyes. "I wish it was just your fault. It would be so much easier."

"It is. Kara's not to blame-" Lee began.

"Don't go all noble and fall on your sword." Zak found a wall to hold up. "I know her a hell fo a lot better than you. This wasn't the first time we've broken up; you weren't the first she's frakked when we weren't together." Zak took a shuddering breath. "And I'm more guilty than she is."

"What are you saying?" Lee's eye narrowed. "You cheated on her?"

"Another pilot, on maneuvers." Zak closed his eyes, shaking his head. "I knew it would get back to her. I thought if she realized that I wasn't going to wait around for her, maybe she'd change her mind. Not one of my better strategies, I admit. It made sense at the time. "Zak sighed deeply. "At least you and Kara thought you were technically in the clear. I knew it was cheating and did it anyway, to hurt her."

Lee leaned next to Zak, the brick rough and cold. "Why did she take you back?" he asked.

Zak looked at Lee and raised an eyebrow. "She didn't give me a reason, but now I'm guessing it's you, not my brilliant plan."

Lee nodded. "So I got you your girlfriend back?" The irony was not lost on him. "Then you can't be mad at me…."

Zak stood up and started walking back towards his dorm. "You frakked my fiance. I can still be mad at you. Just like I can be mad at her that she didn't tell me she was pregnant."

The reality chilled Lee. "Zak-"

"Don't say it. It's really irrelevant now. The baby's- gone." Zak bit his lip. "Yours or mine. If she told me, the same things would have happened. I would have asked her to, even if she didn't want to do it on her own. I am not father material, and it would ruin both our careers. I didn't think about that bigger picture before I went drinking, I was mad Kara didn't tell me about it, but not that she did it."

Lee could understand- hadn't he been in the same position only four months ago? But now, having made that decision and having to live with it, he knew it was the wrong one. But that was irrelevant for Zak, now. Zak hadn't really had to make the decision, and in a way, Lee was glad. This situation wasn't perfect, but it wasn't Zak's fault. He was lost in his own thoughts, until Zak's voice pulled him out of his reverie.

"And I know why she did it, partially. Oviously, if she has a baby, she loses her wings for at least a year, if not her whole career if anyone found out it was mine. That's enough by itself. But she's also got big-time mommy issues to begin with. She told me early on she didn't want any kids. I just thought that I could change her mind, eventually."

Lee was astounded. This huge mess had eaten away at him for months, but in less than an hour Zak had seemed to come to terms with it, plus the abortion. This was one of the biggest differences between the brothers; Lee could carry a grudge to his grave, while Zak couldn't stay mad. "Doesn't this bother you, Zak?" Lee asked in amazement.

"Frak, yes, this bothers me! You frakked my future wife!" Zak ran a hand impatiently through his head. "She might have been pregnant with you kid! The whole situation pisses me off!" he yelled. Quieter, "But neither of you did it to hurt me. It only happened the once-" he looked at Lee for confirmation, at which point Lee nodded- "and I can't change any of it. I either have to accept it or not."

Lee waited for Zak to continue. He didn't. "Are you going to accept it?" Lee asked in a low voice.

"You're my brother. And I love her." Zak sighed, a heavy sigh. "I'm going to have to, aren't I?"

Lee felt some relief. This didn't change the fact that he couldn't have the woman he thought he might love, that she didn't love him back, or that she had killed a child related to him. That part of his emotional turmoil remained unresolved. Zak and Lee silently began walking back towards the dorms, Lee's left eye bruised and his nose bleeding. As they drew up to the square in front of the dorms, Zak paused to face Lee.

"Do you think that- this thing with Kara- the, uh, the abortion. Do you think this is the Gods' way of punishing me for cheating on her?" Zak's voice sounded much younger.

Lee pulled Zak into an embrace. He wanted to tell Zak that the whole notion was stupid, that the gods would never punish an innocent for Zak's actions, but he knew better. If the gods did indeed exist, they were capricious and vengeful. If Zak's punishment was to lose a child, what would Lee's be? Because his crime was infinitely worse.


	12. Chapter 11

**Title- _Aftermath_**

Work In Progress 

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 12/?

**Date-** 3-3-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

Word Count- 1542 

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Again- if you don't like the others (not-Apollo and not-Starbuck), you might not want to read this chapter. Sam isn't as fleshed out as Dualla was in other chapters, but as he wasn't an original character, I'm just not as interested in him. He's just a function of the plot on BSG.

Chapter Eleven

Not long after the discovery of New Caprica 

(_immediately follows the flashback from Chapter Eight)_

The muted noise of life station's everyday activity surrounded Kara as she wrapped her good arm around herself, allowing a moment of weakness and actual tears. _It's for the better_, she kept repeating to herself. _I am not mother material. Lee has a wife. I wouldn't be able to fly anymore. The Old Man would not be happy that I screwed up his remaining son's life and marriage._ It became a mantra in her head, drowning out all the other, darker thoughts echoed in a voice surprisingly like Lee's.

_Slut. Bitch. Good for nothing. A burden to those who know you. A punishment from the gods. _

The strain of looking at four curtains with nothing to do but contemplate how she had ended up here- literally and long-term metaphor- made her insides itch. It was the last thing she wanted to do, because the more she thought about it, the louder the Lee voice in her mind became and the greater her urge to cry. But she was not alone; she had the tough-as-nails Starbuck with her, too, and she had been through worse.

As the second shift transitioned into the third, and what would have been the deep of night planet-side began, Kara could not longer keep up her façade. She felt that last bit of her soul crack under a replay of Lee's cold fury- anger mingled with disgust- and her only defense- "_I'm a screw-up."_ Suddenly that wasn't a good enough defense anymore.

"Kara?" Sam called from the small opening in the curtains, waiting for her to answer before coming in. She was grateful for the interruption.

"Hey, Sam," she said tiredly, trying to hide her red-rimmed eyes.

Making his way to the side of her bed, Sam settled himself, careful not to jostle her or her injuries. "How you feeling?"

She shrugged, as well as she was able. "I'll live."

Sam nodded. "We weren't so sure of that at first."

Kara fixed him with a questioning glare. "I was on the flight deck when it happened, waiting for you to land. No one thought to make me leave, they were all so busy prying you out of your tin can." He took in a shaky breath. "It scared me, Kara."

Biting her lip, she nodded. "I've been in worse, but I guess it must have looked terrible to you."

Shaking his head, Sam said lowly, "Glad I didn't see those other wrecks, then."

Kara wasn't sure how to respond to the underlying tone she picked up. "How long have I been here? You weren't waiting all this time, were you?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah. They wouldn't let me in to see you- not military, not family- so I had to bribe the night nurse to slip in."

The thought that he had wanted to see he that badly, that he had waited hours for her and then had to pay his way in… Sam was a good man. Sam knew nothing of her past, only what she had made herself into. To Sam, she was a capable, honorable warrior, a desirable woman. She had survived the Cylons and saved his ass, against all odds. He had no old grudges, no mistakes to throw back in her face.

With Sam, away from all the things she had screwed up in her life, maybe she really could become what he believed her to be. Hope began to build in the dark depths of her despair. If there was ever a chance for her to change, to grow up, to escape her past, Sam was it. "I'm going to be okay, Sam. My arm will heal up soon, and I'll be back in the cockpit in no time." Kara smiled at him. "Indestructible Starbuck."

"What about entirely human Kara?" Sam asked. "How can you keep going back up there, knowing that each time could end up like that, but worse?"

Kara's smile dimmed. Sam had a way of cutting through her crap that no one else had ever managed, or bothered to try. He didn't buy the Starbuck persona. So she gave him an honest answer. "The same way you could keep attacking Cylons with no hope of winning. It's what I can do."

"I don't want to lose you." Sam stated it simply, his eyes open and honest.

"I always make it back, Sam." Kara tried to avert the direction she thought this was going in.

"Lee was on the flight deck when it happened, too, waiting for a Raptor to Pegasus." He continued to study her face as he spoke.

Kara nodded, looking past his shoulder and unable to meet his eyes. "He's a pilot. He's seen some bad crashes, had a few himself. He knows how bad it can be, waiting to get out."

"He didn't seem to think that you'd make it, either." Sam took Kara's good hand and rubbed the back of it with his callused fingers. "And I would say that his concern was much more than that of a fellow, sympathetic pilot."

"Lee and I go way back-" Kara started.

Sam turned her hand over and massaged the palm. "This was more."

She tried to play dumb, which she never did well. "I don't-"

Sam dropped her hand, and rose from the bed. "I haven't made any demands on you, Kara. I'm not that kind of guy. I don't really do the whole follow-the-rules thing well; I like to set up my own. And I've enjoyed what we've had, what you were able to give me. You saved my life, for frak's sake!" Facing her, hands on the back of the steel chair at her bedside just as Lee had stood not that long ago, he continued "But I want more. I love you, Kara Thrace, and I'm not willing to share you with him. You don't even have to be faithful- just, not with him."

Kara gaped at him, speechless. She and Sam had rarely discussed anything beyond the current good time they were having; they were the type of people happy to live in the moment and frak the consequences. She had never expected this from him, with no warning. It riled her in an unexpected way- was she unhappier that he was asking for her future, or asking her to stay away from Lee Adama? "Are you saying what I think you're saying, Sammy?"

His hazel eyes were pensive. "Will you come to New Caprica with me?"

The question floored her. Her mind raced to find a response. Did he really expect an answer now? This was a bad time for her to make decisions; she knew that, intellectually, and, in a gut move, ignored it. After all, what did she have here? Lee Adama wasn't hers, never would be, and was pissed as hell at her, with fairly good reason. Helo was marrying a toaster, putting some awkward space between them that she was sure would only continue to grow. And her surrogate father, the Old Man, was becoming distant, a result of her avoidance of all things Lee. Her intertwining with the Adama family so far had been nothing but pain for both them and her. Why not make a clean break? And given a day or two, patient privacy be damned, she knew that the rumors would start to swirl about the miscarriage. If she were lucky, the worst rumor would merely be that it was Lee's.

Suddenly longing for something else, anything but here, and knowing that Sam would be the man to help her accomplish it, she impulsively said yes.

The look of relief and happiness in Sam's eyes was warming to her heart, the opposite effect of Lee's earlier, cold interrogation. And with the Thrace need to keep an eye on the exit plan, she rationalized that it wasn't like she was marrying the man. This wasn't a binding agreement. She could leave if she wanted to, even come back to the fleet. She could ask for a leave of absence, giver herself some time to decide. The Admiral would allow it. She was, after all, the best damn viper pilot they had.

Sam hugged her, as best he was able, wrappings and IVs notwithstanding. "We can make a future together, Kara. We can be happy, make a place for ourselves away from all the pain and darkness we're had to endure."

Kara's arm tightened almost involuntarily. She had barely decided to take this chance with Sam when her old instincts had kicked in and started looking for an escape strategy. It was unconscious, uncontrollable. She knew that if she didn't grasp this chance _right now_ that she would frak it up somehow. It had to be a clean, quick, immediate break. "Sam?" she whispered into his shoulder.

"Yeah, Kara?" he pulled back and asked.

"Find me some paper. I'll write my letter of resignation while you look for a priest." Kara looked openly into his eyes as she said it, not sure where she got the strength.

The look that slowly spread across Sam's face, ending with the widest smile she swore she'd ever seen, told her that she had made the right decision. "Really?' he asked, astonishment in his voice.

"Really," she smiled back.


	13. Chapter 12

**Title- _Aftermath_**

Work In Progress 

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 13/?

**Date-** 3-3-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

Word Count- 1497 

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Advance apologies to hard-core, purist K/L shippers; it's a Dee-centric chapter where she's not The Evil Purple-Eyeshadowed One. Again, I don't like Dee much, but she can't be completely terrible, or Lee wouldn't have married her. (He may be clueless at times, but he's not THAT clueless!) This is just an idea of what she must have been like in those off-screen scenes the producers chose not to show us.

Chapter Twelve

Currently, on Galactica

The envelope was bent and crumbled, smudged and smeared by the handling of an unknown amount of people. According to the brief typed note attached, it had been found by a priestess in charge of sorting through unclaimed civilian possessions on the _Kassandra_, a small and rather inconsequential Geminon vessel. A priestess had been sorting through a box of things belonging to a woman named Glorius Samatia, a name Lee did not recognize, and found this. She had forwarded it to the _Galactica_ via a raptor supply run.

He wasn't sure who this Glorius was, or why she had had the letter, but the handwriting told him that it had been written before the Battle for New Caprica. It was Dee's even, easy script: _Commander Lee Adama, Battlestar Pegasus. _Something that he no longer was, and a ship that no longer existed, written by a woman who no longer lived.

The missive from beyond the grave had finally found its way into his possession two days earlier. He had been shaken by its appearance; he could not yet find the courage to open it, much less read it. How much more damage could a letter from his dead wife do him than her and their child's deaths themselves had? He was afraid to find out, to hear sharp words in her voice, the tone dripping with disgust and accusation… That, hearing her voice again, even only in his head, could be far worse than the words themselves. It had taken weeks to quiet the criticisms he imagined from her about his mourning, his lack of emotion about their deaths, his inner secret relief.

He did not want to start that all up again.

But, eventually, guilt won out, as it always did with him. He had not loved Dee right, which he had tried to make amends for by mourning her and their child correctly. The right thing for a widowed husband to do was to be happy he had received a last communication from his wife and read it, so he did. A tumbler of real ambrosia in his hand, his second of the night, he sat down in the CAG's office, hatch dogged, and began to read.

_Lee-_

If you are reading this, then I did not survive the fight for New Caprica, and you did. There are things that must be said, if only to give you peace of mind to continue on. I hope that Kara survived as well, for your sake.

_Before you start to protest, stop. I know, Lee, I know. You love Kara, and Kara loves you. For whatever frakked up reason, you can't manage to be together without tearing each other apart. Do you think I didn't know that I was your second choice? I married you knowing it, because it didn't matter to me, if it meant that I had you, at least for a little while_

Lee had to swallow an angry response. He didn't love Kara. He hated Kara. There were so many reasons to, beginning with Zak and on up to Dee and his child's death saving Kara and other colonists' collective ass from the Cylons. But he couldn't summon up the hate, usually so close to the surface. He continued reading, taking a long draught of ambrosia to fortify himself.

_Don't think that I was some wide-eyed, in-love senseless ingenue. We both know that I wasn't. I loved you Lee, but to be honest, not as much as I should have. If I was your second choice, then you were mine as well. The only difference is that my first choice was dead, and couldn't haunt us the way that Kara could. I don't say this to hurt you; I really don't. I say this so that you can understand our marriage for what it was, and move on._

Had he really misread his marriage that greatly? He had felt some discomfort about how Dee had dropped Billy for him- but it was quickly forgotten in the aftermath of Billy's death and his own injury. Had Dee really seen him, the viper-jock son of the only colonial admiral left, as a second choice? Lee thought that he was not a vain man, but this new information brought that assumption into question.

_I love you, Lee. I do. I chose you over Billy, before Billy wasn't an option. But I love you differently. I loved Billy so much that I couldn't protect myself from it. I don't mean that Billy would ever hurt me. I mean that if I lost him, I would be lost, as well. I loved him the way that I know you love Kara. And I walked away from him for the same reasons that Kara keeps running away from you. _

His wife was explaining his lover's behavior?

_Gods know Kara didn't tell me this; this is what I know, as a woman. Kara wants you. The problem is that she is afraid of what happens later. What if you decide you don't want her anymore? She fraks up on a regular basis- its sure to happen sometime. Then, what if something happens to you and she's left alone? We're in a war, a dangerous war, and it is a distinct possibility that you won't come back one day. How can she go on? So, instead of being happy, ecstatically happy, she settled for content, good; something that, if lost, she would mourn, but not stop living over. That doesn't demean what she has with Sam Anders; there are many types of love in the world. _

_This doesn't demean what you and I have had. _

Was she saying that Lee and Dee's marriage was on par with Anders and Kara's? Nonsense, his mind objected. But his heart relaxed at the acknowledgement of an uncomfortable truth. He reached for his ambrosia yet again, taking a mouthful and letting it ease down his throat.

Many people marry for the wrong reasons and survive it, come to love each other. I think that we might have managed that, someday, had we the chance. But we didn't. I thought that our child would begin to fill the void between us, to more strongly cement our bond. That is my one true regret- that if I died, it means that our child perished with me. But don't over think the past and torment yourself over it. There are a thousand things that we could have done differently in this marriage, but we didn't. I know that, in your own way and to the best of your ability, you loved me. I won't gain any satisfaction from you trying to prove to the world how much you loved me; I will be wandering the Elysian Fields, with our child and all the others we have lost, waiting to greet you many years from now, gods willing.

Lee fervently wished that he had the faith to believe in that warm image.

So if Kara somehow survives the battle for New Caprica, too, make your peace with her. You will never be able to really move on and be happy unless you do. I'm not telling you to have an affair or steal her away from another man, to fall into bed with her. Just find a way to work out an acceptable relationship, where you don't hurt each other all the time. She's too much a part of your world and heart to cut her out completely. I saw it when Kara went back to Caprica for another man, when she settled on the planet with him. If you cut her off, out, over time- you will slowly bleed to death. Life will run out of you, and the world will turn ashes, until there is nothing here for you anymore. You are too good a man to allow that to happen.

In my own way, I did love you, Lee, the best way I was able. I never was and never would have been your heart's desire, but that's okay, as long as your heart desired something.

_Your loving wife, _

_Ana_

Lee finished the letter with tears in his eyes. Her words resonated within him; he understood. Dee had loved him, had chosen him; he had loved her, chosen her, even if it wasn't as intense a love as what he felt for Kara. That fact that he loved Ana, differently than he loved Kara, had absolved him of the guilt he was feeling. The anger at himself, the despair, the frakking emptiness, lifted from him.

Leaving the nearly empty tumbler of ambrosia near the battered letter, Lee laid himself down in his rack, staring up at the steel girders in the ceiling. Dee was right; as usual, Lee was wrong, trying to fool himself. Whatever Kara had done in the past paled in comparison to this dark world without her. He loved her, and he hated her. That was the problem.


	14. Chapter 13

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 14/?

**Date-** 4-29-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **2176

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** Season 1 through the rumors of Season 3

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Chapter Thirteen

Currently on Galactica

The Admiral watched Kara and Lee avoid each other for far longer than he had planned; his week deadline with Lee had come and gone, and his son had disappointed him by avoiding the problem with Starbuck rather than resolving it. The strain between them was apparent, but not affecting their performance yet. Given their history, the fact they were his children, and their difficult personalities, he decided to give them a little more time. Not much, but some. In the meantime, he tried to schedule Lee's CIC turns to coincide with Kara's CAP, just so he could monitor their reactions to each other. It was obvious that something had changed recently, given the expression on Lee's face this morning and his air of distraction, as well as his sudden desire to fill in a CAP. Bill okayed the substitution without a second thought when he realized- and Lee didn't- that Kara was flying CAP, too.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lee was lost in memories, one washing over another, endlessly and out of order. One crisis, one argument, one tragedy after another, endlessly looping and he was unable to turn it off. Anger surged through him, followed by despair and cold emptiness. It was a common state for him these days. An unpredictable cycle of negativity and hopelessness, and all of it centered on Kara. He had thought that volunteering to run a CAP for a sick pilot and getting into the air would allow him to clear his head, but then a further reshuffling of the schedule had somehow paired him up with Kara.

The peace he had been searching for was shattered beyond recall when, as soon as CAP had been launched and the course plotted begun, Kara's tentative voice echoed in his ear. "Lee?"

After briefly considering ignoring her- the tone told him that it was not mission related, and the use of his given name completely against protocol- he tersely asked, "Yes, Starbuck?" He was in no mood to deal with her, especially given that she had been the focus and reason for his bad mood lately. Well, Starbuck and his father's directive. He had a feeling that William Adama's patience with his son and the fleet's top gun was nearing an end.

Kara cleared her throat gently, trying to judge the best way to approach him. "Permission to switch to unmonitored channel, sir." She felt his indecision and anger over the com. She fully expected him to say no and ignore her for the rest of the shift, barring a sudden appearance of the Cylons, but she had to make the effort. The Admiral was close to making an Apollo/Starbuck reunification an order; she wanted to avoid that. Instead, however, Lee surprised her.

"Channel two, Starbuck." The statement was made in a voice suddenly bland, tired, lacking any emotional undercurrent; the click signaled he had changed over and she quickly followed suit. "What don't you want all of CIC to hear?"

She had never gotten beyond Lee's agreeing to talk, in all her strategies and preparation. She usually flew by the seat of her pants, and had trusted that unshakable skill- or what she thought was an unshakable skill. Because hearing Lee talk to her, not yell, blame, or silently seethe at her, made her mind shut down. Caught totally unprepared, she almost stuttered. "I want to talk to you, Lee. Like before, without the anger, the accusation-. There are things I need to tell you, and you need to hear." She paused, gaining confidence the longer he let her go on. "All I need is for you to listen. After I'm finished, you never have to talk to me again outside of official duties."

"The Admiral has spoken to you, too, huh, Starbuck?" Lee managed to gasp out past the sudden lump barring his throat. "Mend fences, or however he put it to you." Lee sighed- long, deep, and hollow sounding. The anger that usually shadowed his voice when he had to deal with her had been replaced with a melancholy fatigue. Why keep fighting this? Destiny kept throwing Kara Thrace back into his path and had for years. The harder he tried to avoid her, the harder fate intruded into the bubble he had built. Dualla's death was an equal force reaction by the Gods to his attempt to shove Kara as far away as possible. Regretful acknowledgement of the need to concede settled deep into his bones, squeezing his heart. The pain the words cost him was evident in his tone. "Not now. I can't do this now, not like this. I need to see your face."

Kara felt her heart jump.

Apollo continued, "Once we land, we'll find some alcohol and privacy, and hash this out to the Admiral's satisfaction."

"Yes, sir," Kara snapped back, sounding (and feeling) more like Starbuck than she had in some time.

Galactica CAG office, after CAP

Lee waited for Kara to show up nervously. The emotional roller coaster he had experienced in the past day was showing no signs of letting up. There was a lot to talk through, a lot of risk here. The only thing worse than what they were doing to do tonight would be if his father had actually ordered them. He tossed back three fingers of what passed for ambrosia these days in an attempt to settle his nerves. When the knock finally came on the hatch, he still jumped. Steadying his voice, he called out, "Enter."

Kara opened the door cautiously. "Major."

Lee dropped the meeting down to informal quickly. "Kara, come in."

She closed her eyes momentarily. "Been awhile since you called me that." She stepped in and settled onto the couch. "Where's that drink?"

Lee filled a glass and handed it over. He remained leaning against the desk, however, instead of sitting next to her. Raising his own, he proposed a toast. "To working through the demons of the past."

Kara nodded her agreement. Lee's attitude- his voice- weren't his usual. She wasn't sure how to take his change of heart. "So say we all," she answered. Sipping, she decided that maybe she should be the one to start this. "So, where should we start? That's a lot of ground to cover."

"My father wants us to settle things between us, but he had no idea how we've hurt each other over the years. I don't know if we CAN settle things-" Lee started, only to be interrupted by Kara.

"Lee-" she sounded breathless. "Please- there has to be a way to work this out-"

"You killed my child. Twice. Without my knowledge or consent." Lee put it out there, very quickly, before he lost courage. "You helped me hurt my brother in a way I swore I would never hurt him. You married Anders and ran away from me."

Gathering her courage, Kara agreed. "Yes."

Lee's face hardened. "So you knew that they were mine, and you didn't care."

Kara felt her temper begin to rise. "How would you know if I cared? Did you ever ask me, between slinging all that blame around and leaving?"

Lee had the good manners to color a little in shame. "It was too late."

"So the children mattered to you, but I didn't?" She downed her drink. She wasn't going to be able to do this sober. Getting up, she poured herself another one, downed it and gasped at the burn. Longing for the smooth taste of real ambrosia, she poured another. "I never wanted to be a mother, Lee. Whose children they were never really factored into my decision. I can't be a mother."

Lee bit back a harsh response and another mouthful of alcohol. "Zak said you had mommy issues. I didn't realize just how deep it went."

The hurt in her eyes made him momentarily regret his choice of wording. "I didn't have issues. I had hell. And I wouldn't impose that on any child." She chose not to elaborate, and Lee pressed her.

"Whatever your mother was like, Kara, she isn't you. You aren't her. You didn't even consider that?" Lee asked, his voice raspy.

"I learned everything I know about being a mother from her. How could I be any different?" Kara drank again, slower this time. The world, the pain, was becoming comfortably distant. "Think how I resolve my differences, Lee. Not exactly good parenting skills in hitting children."

Lee moved to sit next to her on the couch. "I would have helped. You wouldn't be alone. I wouldn't have let you become your mother."

A harsh cackled escaped her throat. "You can't promise that. You didn't know her or what it was like or how it affected me. And I don't think either your brother or your wife would have appreciated you helping me, Lee."

Looking away from the contorted face Kara made trying to reign in emotions, Lee sighed deeply. "I didn't say it would be easy. I said that I would have helped."

Kara cut him off. "Lee, I can't change the past. You can't change it. I acted like I did based on what I thought at the time. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you. I'm sorry that I didn't trust you enough to tell you. Just keep in mind, it wasn't all about you."

He nodded in agreement. "No, it wasn't. Zak was actually okay with your decision. Said he would have wanted the same. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I had already made that choice and regretted it."

Kara asked the question she had been dreading. "How did he take the news that it might be yours?"

"Not as well," Lee drank again. "He landed one hell of a punch. Got over it pretty quick, though."

"He always was easy going." Kara smiled. "Had to be, to put up with me."

Lee couldn't help but agree. "Dee didn't take it as well."

"You told her?" Kara's voice raised dramatically.

"Not about the baby." He settled on the sofa next to her. "After the baby, after you left the fleet- I got very drunk one night. Dee heard more than she wanted to hear. In the morning, she didn't bring it up and I acted like I didn't remember."

"So I lied to her for nothing." Kara shook her head in amusement.

"Why did you lie to her?" Lee asked in a tightly controlled, low voice. "Why didn't you tell her?"

"It wasn't my place. The things you said to me- the things we did- it was because of the situation. I thought it wasn't for real. Neither of us thought that we were getting off that rock, that we would have to live with what we said and did." It was Kara's turn to drink. "So I didn't see the need to make your marriage more difficult."

"Why not?" Lee's voice was suddenly angry. "Why didn't you want to make trouble for me? You told me that you loved me- you told me that it was always me. Did you lie to me, just so that I would frak you before you died? Did you mean any of it?"

The weight of emotion in his voice shook her. "No, Lee. I didn't lie."

"Then why didn't you fight for us? We got back, and you were the same old Starbuck. Not a clue that anything had really changed." Lee fought back control of his voice. "I thought that I was just another frak for you."

"Is that why you never fought for us?" Kara countered Lee's accusation in a sad tone. "We got back, and you went right home to Dee and playing house with her."

"I loved her. I didn't want to hurt her. And you had Anders still, too. I just needed time to think things over-" Lee started.

"Are you saying that I should have waited for you?" Kara show back. "Dropped Sam, and sat twiddling my thumbs to see if the great Apollo would deign to chose me?"

Lee realized how it sounded. "No, I didn't mean that. But- some indication that you meant what you said on the planet would have helped."

"Either you believed me or you didn't, Lee." Kara finished off her drink and rose from the couch to get another. "I had hoped that you thought enough of me to realize that I wouldn't lie to you about that."

"We both made mistakes, I guess." Lee rested his hands in his head, elbows on knees. "And its too late to do anything about it but apologize."

Kara nodded in agreement. "We both made mistakes. We can't compare and weigh them- just agree that we both frakked up, and move on from here. That's what your father wants us to do."

Lee ran his hands over his face. "Can we do more than that? Can we be friends again?"

Lee's plaintive tone and the fragility in his eyes broke her wall of reserve. "I would really like that, Lee."


	15. Chapter 14

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 15/?

**Date-** 5-25-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **1340

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** AU from S2 finale.

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Sorry for the long break in posts- I was internet access-less (and computer deprived) when my laptop decided to have a melt-down a few weeks ago. It's now back, functioning, and I am approaching the end of the school year, so work has died down. I posted my last chapter (finished before the melt-down) and am trying to wrap this up. I know where I want to end up, it's just missing a step or two in my plan to get there. Soon, though, I promise.

This is not my favorite chapter; it was difficult to write and kind of plods along. It includes aspects I thought necessary for logical plot development. Feel free to correct me, though, because I just really didn't enjoy this one. Maybe you will.

I actually ended up cutting this one short, to be continued in another short chapter later, just so that I can post something NOW.

Chapter Fourteen

Rec Room, Battlestar Galactica, Present

Lee studied Kara out the corner of his eye, carefully looking like he was still working on a flight schedule. Everyone knew that Lee could never do real paperwork in the rec (there was a reason that the CAG had an office), and Lee had never tried to do so before. But after his and Kara's "talk" last week, Lee wanted to try and give this friendship thing a chance. That required he and Kara to actually interact in a non-formal, off-duty way that didn't end up in a frak or a fight.

He still wasn't sure if he knew how to do that.

Leadership roles and distance- real and metaphorical- from his best friend, Kara, had made Lee a more cautious man. Never open, he was like an emotional black hole well before New Caprica; he chose not to share his feelings with anyone, not even his wife. It didn't make friendship with others on Pegasus or Galactica easy, and Lee hadn't tried very hard, so used to an already solitary existence. He wasn't a misanthrope; he didn't actively avoid human social contact, if offered. Mostly, he just didn't look for it, and life made it easy for him to stay that way. Once the need to block Kara's very existence from his mind was gone, however, he realized just how empty his mind and days were, and that he needed to reach out.

So Lee was attempting to reconnect with Kara. If he had a firmer grip on his temper, which still flared unpredictably despite their reconciliation, he would have looked for her at the gym; right now, the proximity of boxing gloves and ring was too much of a temptation for him. Likewise the recently established Joe's bar; alcohol and Kara was a deadly combination for Lee. So that left the rec room.

Kara herself had taken the first step at resuming the semblance of friendship, turning up at Lee's rack the morning after their "talk" to roust him for a morning run, which had become a daily ritual again. He had been in the process of waking up when she arrived, but let her go on about how soft and lazy Lee had gotten without her around. The entire time that she had joked with him in that old Starbuck tone, she had worn a nervous smile. It was an incongruous mixture of Kara and Starbuck that made him think back to the worlds, and what had drawn him to her in the first place. He had forgotten, in the drive to survive, running from the Cylons and risking their lives every time they flew out there, just how fragile Kara really was.

That was a mistake he had to keep from repeating. If Lee and Kara were to let old wounds heal, they could not afford to inflict any new ones. The problem was that they had both refined the skill of hurting each other to an art form, and it was difficult to replace the habit with anything else. So it was with guarded words and actions that a relationship- neither would call it a friendship yet- was resumed. If this was difficult for him, however, it was just as difficult for her.

Kara had never talked much about her past, but after she revealed the depth and breadth of her "mommy" issues, Lee had looked into her file, including medical records and psych evals. Kara had only hinted at the level of abuse she had suffered from her mother over the years. Medical files, beginning with the academy and flight school, allowed him to piece together those things Kara didn't want to say. After all, it was pretty unusual for a child to break each finger on both hands at the same exact spot, all at once. It wasn't every child who had broken or fractured sixteen various other bones in addition to those ten tiny digits by the age of eleven. Most children certainly didn't require a total of over one hundred stitches by their seventh birthday.

The abortion, the lack of enthusiasm about parenting, the refusal to tell him she was pregnant at all, began to make more sense, the further he delved into her file. The more he read, the more he thought about it, the less he blamed Kara for the past, at least the children. She had reacted in a way that made sense, given her experience. Who was he to tell her otherwise? In her position, he might well have made the same choices that she made.

After all, he had told Gianne to have an abortion. Demanded it . And they had a real, established relationship, not a one-night stand.

Maybe he would have made her same mistakes, her same decisions. But there were some lines that he liked to think, Olympic Carrier and other harsh acts aside, he would not cross. And even if he gave her a pass on the lost pregnancies, there were still her actions before and after the losses. How could she take Zak back and never mention what Lee and she had done? How could she sleep with Lee, however drunk she was, if she loved his brother? And how could she marry Anders and leave Lee high and dry?

These acts, these lies and deceits, the times she had back-pedaled away from him at full tilt?

Lee still had trouble excusing those incidents, which were the subjects of his wandering mind when Kara's voice called him out of his reverie. "Well, Lee?" she demanded, stogie firmly tucked into the corner of her mouth and posture slouching back in the metal chair. "Work stays in the office. Are you going to take that stick out of your ass and play some Triad or not?"

Blinking away his darker thoughts, concentrating on the need to move past their history together, Lee forced a smile. "I'll sit in a few hands," he stated, stacking his work back into the file folder next to him. "If I don't finish the rotation schedule, I'll just plug the holes in it with your name, Starbuck."

Kara leaned her head forcefully to one side, then the other. A quick popping sound and a sigh of relief quickly followed. "I'll finish the schedule for you myself, if you can beat me, Apollo." Her crooked, challenging smile galled him for a moment, until he realized that this is exactly how she would have looked and what she would have acted like before New Caprica, before the fateful crash on that lonely planet.

They were actually joking with one another without drawing blood and stirring up already muddied waters.

Lee settled onto a chair and fished out some cubits, stacking the semi-worthless slugs in front of him. "That's a bet, Starbuck. Deal me in the next hand."

Even trying to tiptoe around one another, Lee and Kara could not help but compete ruthlessly. When Lee lost to her, it was luck on Kara's part, not lack of skill on his. Same went for when she lost and he won. It went that way, back and forth without a clear winner, for rest of the shift and into the next. Players cycled in and out, most losing booty to Kara or Lee, but one or two lucky ones winning here and there. It took the nuggets crowding around and playing badly before the thrill of the game to pale for the two ace viper jocks. As Lee finally declined to be dealt in, claiming that he wanted to return his forgotten and unfinished paperwork (still his, as Kara had not been povertied to that level over the course of the night), Kara also passed the cards on to a newbie. Lee and Kara headed in opposite directions- she to the Senior Officers' racks, he to his office- before either one realized that they had just managed to pass an entire evening in each other's company without a single cross word or right hook.


	16. Chapter 14 part 2

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 16/?

**Date-** 5-29-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **1906

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** AU from S2 finale.

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Chapter 14, Part Two

Present Day, Galactica

Orange encased legs, ending in scruffed boots, stuck out from beneath Kara's viper. It was four hours past the end of Kara's maintenance shift, yet she was still hard at word, having disassembled the hydraulics system and not yet put it back together again. The Chief had mentioned Starbuck's presence- and refusal of offered help from anyone, even him- casually in the mess nearly an hour ago. Well, casually followed up with a request to remove Starbuck before the ground crew refused to work if they had to listen to her berating them anymore.

Lee had given her a chance to finish up and leave before he showed up to drag her out of there.

He finished his processed-algae noodles slowly, stopped by his office to drop off some ever-present paperwork, and then hit the racks to see if Kara was there. She wasn't. She also wasn't in the head or rec room. He knew how obsessive Kara could be at times, and luckily they weren't stretched to the limits these days, so she probably wouldn't be needed to fly a CAP tomorrow on the less than necessary level of rest for a human to function. Still, this wasn't normal behavior, even for Starbuck. Stealing himself for a fight, he had headed to the hangar bay to find out what was going on.

She was so busy with the bits and pieces of her viper- she had moved on to avionics, and had fluid lines and gauges spread all around her- that she didn't notice Lee at first. And when she did, it was only his boots and BDUs; she didn't even come out from beneath to find out who it was before yelling, "Frak it, Chief, I told you I was fine. It will be back together before the next shift!"

"Starbuck!" Lee barked. "Get out here!" The authority in his voice indicated that this wasn't a social call.

He heard her heavy sigh as she took a moment to get her annoyance under control before she rolled out. He had a feeling their uneasy truce might be about to end. "Why are you still here and terrorizing the deck crew?"

Kara wiped her hands off on a rag as she rose. "Are you here as the CAG, or as Lee?" she looked directly at him as she asked.

He studied her face. There were dark, dark circles under her eyes, and her limbs hung heavy with an uncustomary tension. He didn't even hesitate. "Lee."

"I can't sleep. I already hit the gym this morning for hours. Still couldn't sleep. Quite frankly, I'd rather be here than lying in my rack." Kara put her hands on her hips, staring dolefully at the mess she had left under her viper.

Lee swallowed. He had never asked her directly what had happened to her on New Caprica, but this kind of insomnia- if she were having dreams, too- could be PTSD. It would be unusual NOT to have symptoms, given what they had been through for the past three years, but Kara hadn't mentioned it before.

Of course, until recently, Lee wouldn't have been someone she would have confided in. "Dreams, too?" he asked, keeping his voice low and friendly.

Looking at a random point over his shoulder, Kara flattened her lips in a look of distaste. "Yeah," she admitted, her voice filled with emotion.

"Are they that bad?" he inquired, trying to catch her eye. She was still staring off into the dark corners of the bay.

"Yes," she whispered, turning her back to him and taking a moment to get herself under control.

Lee reached for a wrench and another wheeled cart. "Well, you can tell me about it while we put this bird back together again." Laying himself down, he saw Kara make the mental choice to go along with him instead of fight him. He took it as a victory in re-establishing their relationship.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O 

Three days later, Lee managed to corner Kara in the head to inquire if she was sleeping any better. Judging from the sounds she made in her sleep, which the thin privacy curtain did nothing to muffle, he was sure that she wasn't. True to form, though, Kara tried to brush him off. "Yeah, I'm getting an hour or two more a night. Not a good night's sleep, but better."

Studying Kara's image in the mirror- he hadn't seen her look that tired since the thirty-three minute attacks- he knew she was lying. He also knew that she had regretted showing him any weakness in the hangar bay the other night. He contemplated letting the matter drop, giving it a couple more days before he ordered her to see Cottle; then he realized that that was what a CAG might do, but not a friend. And he and Kara were trying to be friends again. Leaning on the counter, towel tucked around his waist, he crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "Kara," was all he said in a gentle tone.

She snapped, "I'm fine. I'll be able to fly, don't worry about it."

"That's not what I'm worried about, Kara." Lee waited until she met his gaze in the mirror. "Starbuck always pulls her ass out of the fire. I know you wouldn't fly if you weren't capable." He shifted and squeezed her shoulder lightly. "But I want to know how you are, my friend, not a pilot under my command."

Biting her lip, Kara grudgingly answered. "Not great."

Lee nodded. "I sort of figured that out. What's wrong, and what can I do to help?"

"I can't stop dreaming about New Caprica. I can't put him out of my mind-" Kara's voice wavered, but did not break.

"Right. Sam-" Lee started, remembering a similar conversation that seemed a lifetime ago, about the presumed dead man Kara couldn't get out of her head. If only Lee had been lucky enough that Anders hadn't made it back to the fleet back then. He felt a pain in his chest, purely a psychological reaction to the mention of Kara's dead husband.

"No, not Sam," Kara interrupted to correct him.

"Who then?"

"Leobon."

"The Cylon?" Lee asked, surprised.

"He kept me prisoner, in a cell fixed to look like an apartment." Kara picked up a brush and pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail. "He wanted me to love him, to want to be there with him."

Lee didn't want to have this discussion in a public area of the ship. He was very afraid of his reaction to the details Kara had left out of her official debrief. He could distantly acknowledge what had probably happened to her as a prisoner of the Cylons, but it would be quite another hear them directly from her. "Are you sure you want to do this here?"

Kara took that as a rejection. Whirling, she shook her head and rolled her eyes. "If you didn't want to know, why did you ask?" she spat out as she pushed past him and out the hatch.

Lee paused a moment to heave a purely mental sigh. Kara always expected the worst, to be rejected. She never considered that he was thinking about her, too. Grabbing his shower kit, he followed her out, reaching her just as she slammed her locker shut.

Grabbing her boots and shoving feet into them, she shot him a dirty look. "Just what is it that you want, Commander?" she asked in as formal a tone as she could manage.

"Don't take your anger out on me, Kara," Lee tried to keep the anger from creeping into his voice, but failed.

"You weren't down there with us, Lee. You don't want the nitty-gritty truth." She took a deep breath, trying to calm down before the tears edged their way out. "You want to get to pick and choose the details of what it was like down there. You don't really want to know what he did to me, because then you can't ignore it anymore." Roughly lacing and tying her boots, she rose to leave.

"I want to know!" Lee shouted. "But I honestly wasn't sure if the communal head was the best place to discuss your kidnapping and confinement, Kara. I thought you might want some privacy." He threw his kit into his own locker, dragging out sweats to pull on. "But I forgot that Starbuck doesn't need people to be nice or thoughtful- she can do it all alone. Most of us mere mortals can't."

Kara threw him an angry, evil glare. But she and Lee were trying NOT to fight- trying to act like real friends. Friends confide in each other. Her voice harsh and raspy, she asked, "Do you really want to know how I am?"

Lee paused at his locker, closing it softly to turn and face her. "Yes."

"I'm a mess." Kara sat down on her rack and put her head in her hands. "I can't sleep. If I fall asleep, all I dream about is being in that cell, where no one knows I am and not able to get out. And the Fleet has left, taken the survivors it can, and I'm left there with Leobon. For ever."

Lee settled himself next to her on her rack and wrapped an arm around her. Leaning his cheek against hers, he pulled her into a true hug, breathing in the scent of her. "It didn't happen. It can't happen now. You're safe."

"It did happen. For four long months." Kara stated plaintively.

Lee closed his eyes, remembering the pin balling of emotions he had felt at leaving the colonists behind; the wrenching pain, even with the strain between them, of leaving Kara to the Cylons. "I'm sorry," Lee whispered, "that it happened."

"I don't blame you, Lee." He felt the tears leak from her eyes and fall onto his hands. "You had to leave, to save us. There is no blame here. There just is no way to make it up, no way to make it better. I have to work through it. Sometimes its not easy."

Lee nodded. "What can I do to help?" he asked.

"This is good." Kara leaned into his hug. "Just- stay here, and talk to me."

Settling himself and Kara back against the wall, he shifted his hold on her, putting her back to is front, cushioning her from the cold metal wall of her rack. Wrapping his arms around her middle, he settled his chin on her shoulder. "So talk to me."

And she did. For hours. He heard the worst of her fears, about the child that wasn't hers but she thought was, the child's injury and Kara's culpability in it, about Leobon's attempts to make her love him, about her multiple murders of his copies and the endless returns. About her fears for Sam and the other colonists she could not longer help, for the Admiral and Lee, whom she had deserted. That she would die alone there, for no purpose other than a twisted cylon's ravings about destiny. As she talked, they moved slightly, adjusting position as muscles ached and joints protested, until she eventually lay by his side, his arm around her and her cheek pressed against his bare chest. As they drifted off to sleep together, emotionally spent, Lee remembered the last time he and Kara had fallen asleep this way.


	17. Chapter 15

I don't write technical jargon very well, so even though some is necessary to this chapter, I tried to keep it simply and minimized. So if you have any comments on that aspect, PLEASE let me know. It's an area I've got to work on if I'm going to keep writing sci-fi.

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 17/?

**Date-** 5-30-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **1810

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** AU from S2 finale.

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Chapter 15

two months before Kara and Sam's wedding,

on the surface of a nameless planet

"I told you to let me pilot," Starbuck grumbled half to herself. She was trying to open the entry panel to the Raptor Lee had just crash landed.

Already aggravated, Apollo swore under his breath. "You were the one who miscalculated the jump. A few more meters and we would have cleared that final level of atmospheric debris." He lent his strength to the effort, managing to crack the panel just enough to feel a whoosh of freezing air even through his heavy flight suit. "Frak, that's cold."

Starbuck spared a moment to give him a dirty look. "It's a frakkin' ice planet. Did you expect a tropical breeze with sunny beaches and blue water?"

Apollo bit back a retort and continued prying the non-functioning door open. The crash had fried their sensors, the communication systems, and the internal rescue beacon. They needed to scout out the area before setting the manual rescue beacon and hunkering down to wait for SAR. "Just take a quick look around, set the beacon, and get back in here before we both freeze to death."

"Why is it that I have to do this?" Kara asked, some of her usual bravado fading.

"You miscalculated the jump." Lee stood back from the door, open just wide enough to let Starbuck squeeze past in her environmental suit.

"I did not!' she protested. "Just because you aren't as good a pilot as me-"

"Starbuck!" Lee shouted. "Go, for gods' sakes!"

She jumped out, and was back in a matter of minutes, a bleak look on her face. She motioned for Lee to help her re-secure the panel before reporting her findings. Once fastened, she removed her helmet and rubbed her face with the rough gloves of the suit. "We're so frakked, Lee."

Her tone and look spooked him. Starbuck always saw a way out of whatever box she or the fleet was in. If she was this negative this early, they really might be frakked. "Sitrep?" he questioned.

"Everything is frozen, as far as I can see. There is no shelter of any kind, no growth, no animals." Kara began pulling off the rest of her suit. "And the sun is setting. Our advance intelligence gives rotation time as two days."

The seriousness of the situation began to sink in quickly. "Night is coming. Two days of night. On a sub-zero planet of ice." Lee blew out a breath. "We have maybe ten hours of oxygen on board, after taking that hit-"

Kara looked him square in the eye and added, "And a malfunctioning distress beacon."

"Frak!" Lee swore. "Can the beacon be fixed?"

"If Gaeta or the Chief were here," she replied tersely. "But not us." She handed it to him to look over, and after a few minutes, he agreed.

Shrugging on any extra clothing they could find on board, both Lee and Kara were silent. They kept their helmets off to preserve a final reserve of oxygen, should it be needed. Lee adjusted the life support system to a lower setting; although neither of them should feel much more than some fatigue, it could buy them a few more hours of oxygen. Kara searched the raptor for ration bars and emergency blankets, piling what she could find onto the middle of the floor. Squatting down, wrapping one of the foil heat-trapping blankets around him, Lee studied the pile. "We can make it last three days, if we don't have to do much physical labor."

Kara nodded. "We have more food than air."

"But it's an oxygen rich atmosphere," Lee protested. "The mix isn't too far off what we're used to. We can let the outside air in if we have to-"

"And freeze to death in the process," Kara added dryly.

Lee ignored her tone. "We might be able to figure out a way to heat it some. Not necessarily a pleasant option, but one to consider if it becomes necessary."

"What do we do while we're waiting for a miracle rescue, sir?" Kara asked in a sarcastic tone.

Lee laughed. "Try not to kill each other, I guess." He settled down in the co-pilot's seat, nodding to the pilot's chair. "Take a load off, Kara."

She sighed, but joined him. "I never thought that it would end like this. A flash of fire, an explosion in space- just not a slow death."

"Now that we've heard from Ms. Sunny Disposition-" Lee tried to joke, but it fell flat. They really were in danger of dying here. Limited air, food; the problem of extreme cold; and last but not least, no way to tell Galactica where they were, and no chance for the Galactica to get a visual on them until the planet's sun rose in two days. "We could-" Lee shrugged, pulling the blankets tighter around him, "talk."

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 

Kara and Lee traded Academy stories, where their time had overlapped a bit but they had never had a chance to become friends. Kara had heard some of Lee's escapades- he was must less straight laced those days, apparently- and Lee found out where some of Kara's screw-up reputation came from. He was amazed, given the brig time she had served, that she hadn't been tossed out by second year. And he realized- she was such a good pilot, the Fleet was as willing to overlook things as his father often was. The privileges of genius, he supposed. Then there were the funny stories, the legendary tales all incoming cadets were told as urban myths- the first year caught frakking in the commander's office; the viper miraculously re-assembled in a night in a pain in the ass flight instructor's office. The laughter turned melancholy, though, when the two realized that almost everyone they were talking about was already dead. Then, silence took over.

Each pilot was trapped in is or her own thoughts, not willing to share with the other. Kara's thoughts were desperate and dark; her fighter's spirit made it impossible for her to simply accept death so placidly, yet there really was nothing they could do but wait. The problem was, the longer she had to consider her imminent death, the more she thought about her life and all the things she had done wrong.

Her foremost regret, as always, was her culpability in Zak Adama's death. At least she would be able to apologize to him in person soon.

Lee interrupted her thoughts with an unexpected question. "Kara, that night meant something to me. Did it mean anything to you?"

Caught off guard, Kara was unable to answer at first. It had been so long since she thought of _that night_; she had worked long and hard to avoid remembering it, not wanting to deal with the emotions it brought back. She bit her lip and closed her eyes. "I was with Zak. On a break or not, I owed it to Zak to try and work it out."

"You didn't answer the question. We're going to die, and you're evading the truth. Just be honest," Lee stated softly. Moving closer, he forced her to meet his eyes with sheer will power. "Did it mean anything to you?"

Barely a whisper, almost as if extracted against her will, one simple word. What was the use in lying now? "Yes."

"Yes?" Lee's voice sounded odd, strained. "Then why did you go back to Zak?"

"You wanted me to dump your brother for you?" Kara laughed nervously.

Lee was suddenly in her face, heat in his eyes. 'If you felt like I did- gods damn me, then yes. I did."

The shock of his admission brought out her own anger. "Then where did you disappear to, Lee? You were gone the next morning, and I didn't hear from you again until the funeral. What was I supposed to think? I thought that you were disgusted with me, couldn't stand to be around me. I know that Zak saw you a few times, but you never came back to see us both. I thought that it was my fault, that the mighty Apollo had judged me- too inferior. After all, I slept with my future brother-in-law, willingly. Happily. Hell, it was my idea, wasn't it?"

The bitterness in her voice gave him pause. He tried to explain himself, years too late. "I didn't have the right to ask anything of you just then. Gianne- the baby- I had to go back and fix it. I wasn't free to pursue a relationship with anyone else." Lee ran his hands through his short hair, making it stand up in a nervous gesture. "But then I couldn't find her, and by the time I got the nerve up to talk to you anyway, Zak told me that you were engaged. What was I supposed to do? You had never contacted me, either. How was I supposed to know how you felt? I mean, we were drunk and hurting-"

"So you decided that it was a pity frak?" Kara shook her head in disbelief.

"It was either that or break my baby brother's heart." Lee let the words hang in the air between them, heavy with the impending knowledge that there was only so much time left to them to attempt to fix an error in judgement made years ago.

"I guess I understand, Lee." She had given him no indication that it was more than a one-night stand; how could she be angry at him for hanging back, especially when he found out that she was engaged to Zak after all? Some would say that he was acting gentlemanly, refusing to kiss and tell to protect her as well as himself. It just didn't feel that way, in hindsight. "But there's no where to go with this now. We'll be dead in a few hours. How much time did we waste, trying to avoid the whole thing?"

"We have a few hours left." Lee's voice was unsteady. "We can make the best of the time we have left."

"What about Dualla?" Kara asked. She was aware that there was something starting there, and wondered just how serious it was.

"What about Sam?" Lee countered, neglecting to answer her.

"This started long before either of them was in the picture. If your brother didn't stop me once, why would Sam or Dee now?" Kara trembled from more than cold. She was so very afraid that this was the end, and she would die alone. That Zak wasn't waiting for her in the afterlife, after the things that she had done to him. And there was her very real and long fought attraction to Lee Adama; though the attraction was well beyond the mere physical. Lee was a strong soul, not weak like her. "Frak me, Lee. I want to remember what that night was like before I die."


	18. Chapter 16

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 18/?

**Date-** 5-29-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **1335

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** AU from S2 finale.

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Chapter 16

Two months before Kara and Sam's wedding,

In Galactica's Life Station

Lee awoke with a start. The cold of the depleted air in the raptor was gone. In its place was the warm, humid, stale smell of long term space travel. He was back on the Galactica. The last thing he remembered was laying wrapped in Kara after the most soul-searing sexual experience of his life; better than the last time he was with Kara because he wasn't befuddled with alcohol or guilt over the act. The cold and lowered oxygen levels had begun to take their toll; he was sure the end was near. Their ten hours of oxygen plus was nearly gone, and there was no way to rig the filtering system to take the icy outside air and heat it enough to use. They had even depleted the limited air in their survival suits with on last attempt to fix and place the beacon. Expecting to die, they had laid down together, spent and feeling the effects of their exertions. He never thought that he would get back up.

Where was she? He half rose from his hospital bed, twisting and turning to get a look behind nearby curtains. He was frantic to find Kara. If he had made it, surely she had as well? His search was interrupted by the appearance of his father.

"Lee. You're awake." The Old Man sounded more fragile than Lee had ever remembered him sounding. Adama sat down in the visitor's chair and grasped Lee's hand. "We were really worried this time. Don't do that again."

"I'll try not to, Dad," Lee replied, trying to stay light. "What about Kara? How is she?"

"Cottle is examining her right now." Adama fixed a look at Lee, and Lee wondered what rumors had already begun to spread about how he and Kara had been found. "I'm sure that it won't take long; he usually likes to be rid of her as soon as possible."

According to the Admiral, the rescue was truly a miracle. Without Gaeta and help from the Cylon Sharon, Lee and Kara would never have been found. In Lee's current state, he was unable to follow the explanation of the technical aspects of the rescue anyway. As it was, this was far closer a call than the Admiral was comfortable with. Adama rose to greet Kara as soon as her curtain was drawn back by Cottle.

"What's the damage, Doc?" Adama inquired.

"No major injuries, other than some hypothermia and mild oxygen deprivation sickness." Cottle shook his head. "Damn amazing. Apollo seems to be a bit more affected; he was out longer. Did you hit your head in the crash, Major?"

Lee indicated no. A baleful look in Kara's direction was followed by a clipped, "Thrace can go at the next shift change, if there are no further problems. I'm keeping you overnight, though."

Lee agreed, even though he hated being here. He knew he wasn't a hundred percent, and he wasn't above using the extra time by himself, away from duties, to think about how things would change now with Kara. It was out in the open, and they could no longer ignore what they felt for each other. Or so he thought. Kara didn't say a word to him, even to ask how he was, while they sat here awkwardly side by side.

Adama broke the silence. "Next time you lose the cat, Starbuck, don't get lost yourself when looking for it." The Admiral's tone was kidding, but even Lee could hear the undertones of concern.

Kara smiled at him, "Yes, sir. I'll go find a new one."

Adama nodded to her, pressed his hand to her forehead, and then turned to leave. Nodding at Lee, his eyes dark and serious, "I'm glad you two are back." Then he left to return to CIC and the running of the fleet.

The short time they spent side by side in Life Station was uncomfortble; neither was ready to talk to the other, to deal with the ramifications of their near-death experience. Small talk, avoidance; all of it was employed to avoid the real issue. It was a pattern as familiar and comfortable to them as an old shoe, and they fell into it as easily as ever.

Kara was released from sick bay first, with orders to rest for a few days. She disappeared with a quick good-bye and did not come back. Lee was surprised that she did not come back to see him; he had laid his heart out for her, had realized that Kara Thrace had been and would always be the one for him. Had told her so, in gasping, strained breaths as they remained connected after lovemaking. Lee shouldn't have been surprised, though; Kara never dealt well with emotion, being quite a private person that way, in contrast to her outrageous public persona. He spent a great deal of his night in Life Station wondering what the frak was wrong with Kara and him now. He had thought things would go easier now.

Lee didn't realize just how wrong he was until he tried to hunt her down as soon as he was released, to no avail. He finally found her playing pyramid on a make-shift court in an unused storage room with Anders.

Interrupting the game, he asked in a controlled tone, " Are you really up for this, Kara? Because I still feel like crap."

Sam answered for her. "She's already up for grabbing life by the horns again," he said, punctuating the statement with a suggestive kiss on her neck. Kara turned red but did not do anything to stop Anders, simply agreeing that she felt fine and turning back to her game.

Left by himself, ignored and in disbelief, he made his way back to his rack. He had never felt so desperate in his life. Kara had been his, totally his, for only a few brief hours, but he couldn't go back. He had meant every word he had said to her in the dark, cold hours on the ice planet. Lee had believed that she had meant it, too. But he was alone, and she was with Sam. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.

In the days to come, Lee realized that the pyramid game with Anders, instead of coming to see him back from Life Station, was the beginning of Kara's withdrawl from him. The emotions following his recovery and resumption of duty- with Kara far distant, avoiding him and her perceived error in judgement as she always did- were difficult for him. How could she act like nothing had happened? He could think of nothing else. He tried to blame Kara's absence on her feelings of guilt, however screwed up those feelings were. Zak was dead, and she and Sam were not married, not even engaged.

But even the excuse of feeling guilty rang hollow to his ears by day nine, when the hurt began to grow. And hurt, with Lee Adama, turned into to hate. It was his mechanism for dealing, just as denial and running were hers. He decided to take matters into his own hands, track Kara down and demand that they work this out between them, two weeks after their return. The words he wanted to say to her died on his lips when he found her and Sam Anders getting drunk together, practically frakking, in the rec room later that afternoon, obviously having been there a good portion of the day already. Then the hurt solidified, and the beginnings of a grudge began.

Their long and complicated history had acquired another twist that day, one that kept curling around like a snake to eventually strangle their friendship. If Kara didn't want him, fine. Lee would move on again. He and Kara had been given a second chance, and all she had used it for was to hurt him more.

Within a week, Lee and Dee were married in a very simple ceremony by his father.


	19. Chapter 17

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Work In Progress_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 19/?

**Date-** 5-25-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **1747

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** AU from S2 finale.

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Chapter 17

Current Time, Galactica's Flight Deck

"Apollo's coming in too hot, Captain Thrace," Tyrol warned Kara. As if she hadn't already figured that out, having done it numerous times herself. This one, she knew, was going to hurt. A lot. Her heart began to race, adrenaline pumping through her system.

A stray fragment from one of Galactica's old Mark II's had sheared off in an explosive hail of Cylon missiles, damaging Lee's thrusters. He had very little directional control, and limited speed control. It would have been suicidal to land the bird at all, except that his canopy was cracking and the Galactica readying to jump as soon as the recalled vipers made their battle landings. He either had to land now, or take his chances for Gods knew how long until the Galactica could send a SAR Raptor for him. She heard his entire exchange with CIC over the wireless as she made her own combat landing. If she hadn't already been down, she would have gone back for him as soon as he reported the extensive damage.

Since he had less than six hours of air left in his suit, and the Galactica was unlikely to be able to return any time soon, given the size of their attacker's fleet, Lee decided to take his chances.

Good thing he was named after a god, because he needed the luck and strength of his namesake to successfully pull it off. As it was, he couldn't catch the trap or slow down to within acceptable safety parameters, and his canopy completely shattered at the viper's third rough bounce across the heavy metal decking. The last thing that he remembered was bracing for a sudden stop against another parked bird; there was nothing of the stop (read "crash") itself, his removal from the scrap heap that used to be his viper, or the gurney ride to Life Station.

Present Time,

Galactica's Life Station

As soon as Lee woke up, he knew that the landing had been bad. The unique smell of antiseptic and old smoke that marked Lifestation was something that he would never forget. He had spent far too much time here- for his father, for Kara, for himself- to mistake it for anywhere else. Opening his eyes and slowly glancing around, he spied Kara leaning facedown on his bed, snoring, from her uncomfortable metal visitor's chair. Her blond hair, cut short again after her year away, came just to her ears and spilled over onto the graying white sheets like a nimbus. Her wide mouth was slightly open, allowing a string of drool to find its way into a pool on his bed. Her breathing was even and calm, and she looked more at peace than she ever did awake. He watched her, not really wanting to move and wake her, as painful as it was to remain so completely still. Kara had obviously been here for a while, and must need the rest.

On the table next to his bed was a collection of paperwork- CAP reports, schedules, clipboards of flight checks. Kara's scrawl was obvious, even at this distance, all over them. Equally obvious were the rings and spills of what passed for coffee these days, all over the crinkled and crumpled stacks, next to an empty mug. Her flight suit was half off and tied at her waist, as if she had come here directly off CAP. Taking a whiff, he was pretty sure she hadn't stopped to shower, either.

It was the same way that he had woken her up more than once, in the months before their ill-fated crash and disastrous marriages, during one of her many Life Station stays.

This time, though, after all they had been through and said to each other, she was here. Had been here, waiting for him to wake up. She had not run away from him when he needed her this time. Lee felt another small bit of the part of his heart reserved for Kara Thrace begin to thaw out more.

"Kara?" he finally asked, voice harsh from a dry throat.

She woke up immediately, running her hands through her short locks and pushing them back off her face. "Apollo?"

"I think I obliterated at least one set of track marks you've left on the deck." Lee tried to joke, a half-smile twisted across a bruised and sore face.

"Yeah, but I look better after I do that crazy kind of shit," Kara studied his face, lightly touching his chin to turn his face into the light to see more clearly. "You look like you've gone a couple rounds, and then some."

Her hands were cool on his tender and overheated skin. Lee shrugged, then cringed at the pain the movement had shot through his body. "How bad is it? I don't think I broke anything-" he started.

Cottle ripped the curtain back at that point. "By some miracle of the gods, you didn't break anything, Adama." He made his way over and whipped out an ice-cold stethoscope, placing it firmly on Lee's chest. "But you smacked your head pretty good and you needed forty stitches to close a gash in your right arm and torso."

"Canopy shattered," Kara chimed in.

"I remember that much," Lee admitted, "but then it goes black."

"You hearing okay?" Cottle groused. "I said you hit your head. Expect slight memory loss of the incident. It might never come back." Cottle began twisting and flexing various parts of Lee's anatomy, inquiring if it hurt and how much. Kara excused herself at that point, gathering her papers and empty coffee mug and heading for the showers. Cottle confirmed what Lee had suspected, Kara had been here for a while.

"Thrace has been driving the nurses crazy all night," Cottle stated in his gravely, even tone. "Keep your girlfriend better in line, or I'll have to kick her out."

Lee felt his heart clench at the word "girlfriend." "Doc-"

Cottle fixed him with an iron stare. "Don't bother to deny it, Commander. I'm old, not blind or deaf. This is not the first time one of you has been laid up here, you know. And I'm tired of listening to your father complain about you two at our weekly triad game."

Lee had trouble wrapping his mind around the many facts thrown into Cottle's speech, and latched on to the least troubling one. "Weekly triad game?"

"You're not old enough to be invited, so don't feel left out." Cottle stopped prodding Lee long enough to scribble some notes down in Lee's file. "Whatever has gone on between you and Thrace, it's too long and complicated for me to even want to know the details. Quite frankly, I don't really care. Just get her to stop terrorizing my medical personal. That girl has no patience and won't take no for an answer."

Lee did smile at that. "Yes, sir." Kara wasn't even a patient and was about to get kicked out of the medical bay.

Flashing a light into Lee's eyes and observing that equal reaction of his pupils, the doctor grunted. "I don't think you have a concussion, and aside from the stitches and some bruising, I have no need to keep you here. Come back tomorrow for me to take a look at those stitches, don't get them wet in the meantime, and you can get the frak out of here."

"Yes, sir," Lee shot out, immediately rising, only to sit abruptly back down and close his eyes.

"Dizzy?" Cottle asked, every observant.

"No."

"Then you can still leave." And the doctor was gone, leaving a hint of sulfur behind as he lit another of his omnipresent cancer sticks.

Lee rose slowly and dressed, finding sweats and clean tanks instead of his sure-to-be shredded flight suit. Kara, he assumed. Making his way out of Life Station and to the Senior Officers' Bunkroom, Lee reflected back on his crash and how scared he had been in those few seconds of his landing that he could recall.

It was the most emotion he had felt since the Battle for New Caprica that wasn't anger or directed at Kara. It was-

Almost a normal reaction.

It was an epiphany for him, the light at the end of a dark tunnel. And all it took, he thought darkly at himself, was another brush with death.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O 

Kara hurriedly headed out as Cottle began a closer inspection of Lee's injuries. She already knew that it wasn't as serious as it looked; she had bullied that much out of the night nurse herself. Gazing at Lee, though- skin pale against the paler sheets, unconscious, bruised, and stitched- Kara felt like her heart was going to explode anyway.

It wasn't her fault that he was here, but the pain she felt, the worry, the fear- this is why she had avoided Lee's last extended stay in Life Station. Sam had simply made avoidance easier

This time, Kara was at Lee's bedside for every uncomfortable minute until he woke up. She had brought paperwork to keep her busy during the interminable wait, picking up some of Lee's work that would need to be done. She was no longer acting CAG when Lee was down, but she knew that he would worry about it and didn't want him to worry. So she did it on her own. The only time she left his side in the nearly twenty-four hours he had been out was to fly her CAP, and she had come right back to his bedside as soon as she landed.

Those long moments, as she and the other pilots had worked seamlessly with Tyrol's knuckle draggers to extract the CAG, had made her realize that whatever it took, she needed to have Lee back in her life again. She simply couldn't lose Lee, too. Not again. He meant too much, and it was time that she admitted it to him, openly, honestly, and without taking it back in word or deed. The small gestures and time spent together, as they had so determinedly ignored past errors in judgement, had been wonderful. And that's when she made her decision. A fresh start- a truly fresh start, with the demons of the past and the skeletons in their closets laid bare and finally buried. Knowing that Lee would be out as soon as Cottle made rounds this morning, she made mental plans. A quick note to leave on his rack, asking him to meet her in Memorial Corridor.

She put the little time she had to good use, knowing that if she were late, he might well leave. And she had a lot to prepare.


	20. Epilogue

**Title- _Aftermath_**

_Complete_

**Author**- PTBvisiongrrl

**Part-** 20/20 (Epilogue)

**Date-** 5-29-07

**Rating** – R

**Pairings/Characters**- Lee/Kara

**Word Count- **1475

**Category-** Short Story

**Genre-** Angst

**Archiving-** The Fallout Shelter, Apollo/Starbuck Fan Fic, All others please ask!

**Warnings-** Not really- just language…

**Spoilers-** AU from S2 finale.

**Disclaimers-** _Unfortunately, I don't own any of these characters, and make absolutely no profit from taking them out to play…_

**Summary- **How do Kara and Lee reconnect after both losing spouses in the Battle for New Caprica? Can they?

Epilogue

Present day,

Memorial Corridor on Galactica

Lee was getting restive. Kara had asked him to meet her here, yet she wasn't anywhere to be found. Ten minutes standing in front of Duck and his girlfriend's picture, sore and tired and waiting for the analgesics Doc Cottle had given him to kick in, Lee breathed an internal sigh of relief when Kara finally showed up.

She had a bundle in her hands, which she juggled awkwardly as she met him, breathless. "I was beginning to think you might have forgotten that you left me a note," he said, trying to keep his tone of voice light and not accusatory. He did not want to set Kara off with the wrong response.

She smiled shyly. "I'm sorry. I got caught up trying to find something I needed."

Casually shrugging- forgetting about his injuries yet again- Lee wondered aloud, "What did you need? And what for?"

Kara bit her lip and looked over Lee's shoulder. "I, uh-" she stumbled over the words, unsure how to best explain her purpose here. She decided that honesty would be best. "Your accident made me think a lot of things over, Lee."

"Was that the burning smell?" he joked, trying to lighten her obviously troubled mood.

She ignored him. "I want what we used to have. I want us to be friends, Lee, real friends. No tiptoeing around each other, ignoring the hundred pound elephant of our history every time we are in the same room together-"

Lee interrupted, his voice low. "I want that, too, Kara. It's just so-"

Nodding, Kara finished his sentence for him. "Hard," she said. "I know. Our past is so much of what we are, I don't know how to forget it. I don't really want to. I just don't want it to ruin what we are today." Quickly kneeling near the wall, Kara began untying her bundle. "I thought of something we could do to help let go of the anger."

Lee eased himself down to the floor, leaning against the wall and sliding down gently. Eyeing her bundle, he raised an eyebrow. "And that is?"

Kara produced thick, stubby candles, some photos, and four lumpy, indistinct clay statues similar to those that used to be sold at temples in the Colonies. "We need to say good-bye to the past, formally. We've talked about it, yelled about it, but we've always gone our separate ways to deal with it afterwards." Spreading the photos out, Kara looked intently into Lee's eyes. "We are going to do this together."

"Kara," Lee began, unsure if he really wanted to do this. "You know that I don't believe in the gods, and some ceremony-"

"It's not a ceremony, Lee." Kara sighed. "And this isn't about the gods. This hall is about saying goodbye to and remembering people who are gone. Our entire relationship is a tangle of people who have died and left us a legacy of pain." Reaching for his hand, and pressing a photo into it, she continued, "And it's time that we ended that pain."

Looking at Kara, Lee was at a loss for words. Unsure how to respond, instead he looked at the photo. It was a picture of Dualla in her formal dress uniform. She did not smile in the picture, her official portrait for the Fleet; it was a cold and distancing pose from another time, before the end of the worlds. His heart still tightened a bit at her face, but not an agony of hurt as it had before. He was, he reflected, beginning to heal. "Who is in the other pictures, Kara?"

Holding two of them up for Lee to see, she said, "Sam and Zak."

"Zak died two years before the attacks, Kara." The pain was still evident in Lee's voice when he spoke Zak's name. Kara wondered if the pain over Zak's death would ever fade for him.

"This is about remembering people important to us, Lee, whether they died before or after the attacks." Kara held her breath as she showed him the final photo, the one that had taken her the longest to locate and was only in the Admiral's collection by a miracle anyway. "Even those we don't know about for sure." The picture was of a blond, tall and thin.

"Gianne," Lee breathed her name rather than said it.

Kara turned to pin Sam's picture up on the wall at eye level, sitting a candle beneath and lighting it. "Sam Anders was a good pyramid player, even if he was a lousy husband and traitor." She proceeded to tack up Zak's picture as well, "And we all know how I failed Zak, in so many ways. I loved him, but maybe not enough." She bent her head in silent prayer for a minute, ending with a low, "Hermes protect your soul in Elysia, Zak," then drew herself up and faced Lee.

Lee shifted uncomfortable. The mass funeral for the fallen of New Caprica had allowed him to push away the act of saying goodbye to Dee; he could focus on any number of the fellow soldiers who had died in the rescue, ignoring the one most important to him. After the funeral, he distracted himself with avoiding Kara and his CAG duties, neglecting to add Anastasia's picture to the wall. He never liked showing emotion, and he was afraid that putting Anastasia's photo up would be the crack in the dam. He didn't want to break down like that in public.

So he had successfully avoided the whole idea for months. Now Kara was forcing him to do it, and in front of her. He shook his head, "I don't think-"

Kara closed her eyes. "You need to really say goodbye, to acknowledge what she was to you, and-" Kara thrust one of the lumpy statues into his hands, "what your son meant to you."

Lee stared at the lump in his hand. He had often seen them at the temple of Apollo on Caprica; as the God of Healing, Apollo was often approached by those who were ill or needed help. As Protector of Children, Apollo was the patron for many a parent of s sick or dying child. When a child was lost, it was customary to leave a statue representing the child at the temple, to ensure that Phoebus Apollo would care for him or her in the afterworld. The statue Kara had given him was not as smooth or detailed as those he had seen on Caprica, but clearly, upon close-up inspection, a child.

Cradling the statue in his hand, Lee closed his eyes and thought of the child he had never wanted but had been gifted with; of the child he had lost before he could meet him. Holding the anthropomorphic rock tightly, Lee said a silent goodbye to the child he had never gotten a chance to know. Placing the statue carefully under Dee's picture, he placed a candle near the two and lit it.

Kara nodded in approval and reached for a statue as well, taking one in each hand. Gently rubbing the figures, she took a deep breath. Wetness in her breath showed her emotion. Laying one figure beneath Zak's picture, but to the left, she stated softly, "This one is Arianna, holy one." Placing the second one on the other side of Zak, she said, "And this one is Amara, eternal." She placed her second candle between the two statues, directly beneath Zak's photo, and lit it.

Lee felt the need to reach out to his own statue again. "Matthew, gift of the gods."

Kara took a deep, cleansing breath. "That's a good name."

Picking up the last statue on his own, and putting it with the last candle, Lee placed Gianne's picture carefully. He centered the last statue beneath it, considering for a moment. The guilt over what he had done to her had not faded with time; the idea that a child of his could have suffered through the attack on the colonies was almost as painful as the child being aborted. "And- Perdita, the lost one." He lit the last candle.

Giving him a moment, Kara considered the weight that seemed to have lifted from her spirit. She had never publicly acknowledged the two children she had lost; even when discussed with Lee, she had never dealt with the fact that those fetuses were potential people, with names and a tangible place in her heart and life. Both Lee and Kara stayed silent for several long minutes, lost in their own thoughts. Lee broke the uneasy silence first.

"Can we move on from here, Kara?" Lee asked in a small voice.

"Do you want to?" Kara asked in an equally small voice.

"Frak, yes." And they left memorial hall gripping hands tightly, as if afraid to let go.


End file.
